Halloween Splatter Pumpkins

Oh my gourd-ness, it's almost Halloween, and these Halloween splatter pumpkins are the perfect last minute decoration! With just a few inexpensive craft pumpkins and some paint, you'll add this whimsical yet spooky decor to your home in no time at all.

Finished paint splatter pumpkins. — (Photo by Viana Boenzli)

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🫙 Materials
🖌️ How to paint splatter the pumpkins

Around here, Halloween is a majorly big deal. With hundreds of people showing up to trick-or-treat and watch us perform in a flash mob in front of our house each year, we certainly have to be ready to impress (in the flash mob, that's me in the front, in the grey dress & white wig, and Erich in the middle in the cream-colored suit).

And this year, I decided to decorate inside too...making spooky DIY candles, over 100 origami bats, and now these paint splatter pumpkins. I mean, let's give 'em pumpkin to talk about and have a gourd 'ol time...right! Okay, okay, enough with the puns...

The idea of these Halloween paint splatter pumpkins is to give the impression that they're splattered with gory blood (hence, the red paint). But you can use any colors you like. You can even paint the entire pumpkin one color, then splatter paint with another color. I'm even thinking of making a different version of these with silver and gold for Thanksgiving or Christmas!

One large and two small splatter pumpkins on a table — (Photo by Viana Boenzli)

🫙 Materials

Real or craft pumpkins (I found these at Target, for just a few dollars each)
Paint
Paint brushes
Small bowl
Water

Plain craft pumpkins sitting on grass in yard. — (Photo by Viana Boenzli)

🖌️ How to paint splatter the pumpkins

First of all, choose a large space to paint the pumpkins, like outside, as you WILL get paint all over. It's also a good idea to wear your painting clothes, because the paint will most likely get on you too.

I decided to use two different colors of red acrylic craft paint for my pumpkins because that's what I had handy, and thought that two different shades of red would give more depth and visual interest to the finished product. But you can use any type of paint you like.

Because we're going to be splattering the paint, stir together the paint and just a little bit of water in a small bowl until it reaches a thinner consistency. You want it thin enough to splatter, but not so thin that it will run all over the place.

Test it by dipping in a paintbrush and then flicking your wrist over a sheet of paper, to see how it looks first before starting on the pumpkins themselves. Also try it out from different heights, distances, and angles to see the different effects that gives.

Place the pumpkins on whatever surface you're using (like the grass in your back yard). Then, just paint splatter away! I found that by placing the pumpkins on their sides, with the bottoms facing me, gave a cool effect of the color being more saturated on the bottom, gradually decreasing in intensity as it went toward the top.