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8 Easy and Chic Ways to Dress Up Your Pumpkins for Halloween

You can’t have a proper Halloween without pumpkins. Whether you plan to pick them yourself from a field, carve them into spooky looking Jack-O-Lanterns, or use them to bake pies and other seasonal goodies, you have to admit that no other fruit or vegetable says “it’s that time of year again” like a pumpkin does for fall and Halloween. And despite the traditional norms of carving up your pumpkins in the most creative way that you can and sticking a candle in them to show off on Halloween night, there are so many other options out there for dressing them up in chic and stylish ways. Here are just a few gorgeous and rather easy ways to do just that.

Cover Them in Black Lace

This is perhaps one of the easiest ways to turn your plain pumpkins into something just spooky enough, yet still very elegant. Check out the gorgeous black lace designs on these pumpkins from Wedding Chicks and EK Success Brands.

Pumpkin with black lace
Pumpkins with black lace displayed on platforms

Bedazzle Them with Jewels

The old bedazzling trend looks anything but tacky when you use it for your pumpkins. You can paint them first in black, white, gold, or silver colors to make the jewels really stand out — like these examples featured on Because It’s Awesome and Bridal Musings.

Painted pumpkins with bedazzled jewlels
Pumpkins painted in black and white, decorated with gold beads

Attach Ribbons to Them

Comparable to the black lace, using ribbon is another easy way to turn your pumpkins into something stylish. You can leave them orange and use black ribbon for the traditional Halloween color scheme, or go for a classic black and white look by painting your pumpkins first.

Pumpkins with gorgeous black ribbon
Black and white pumpkins with beautiful ribbon

Stack Them on Top of One Another

For pumpkins of different sizes, stacking them can create a neat tree-like look. Use different colored ones to place in planters, or stack them and paint them with a spooky-looking tree design for your Halloween treat table.

Beautiful pumpkins in planters with ribbon
Stacked pumpkins with painted tree

Hoist Them Up on Candlesticks

Candlesticks make the perfect platforms for staging your pumpkins — especially if you use pumpkins of different heights. Paint or decorate them first before placing them on candlesticks, like these examples from Grand in Road, or simply leave them as they are with some optional ribbon added to their stems like the second example below, featured on BHG.

Painted pumpkins in stripes and zig-zag designs
Plain pumpkins with ribbon and candlesticks

Use a Cloche

A cloche can make almost any old item look refined, delicate, and even rare. Simply decorate your pumpkin however you like and place it underneath a cloche, like this one with a black raven design painted on it. Alternatively, a comparable example from One King’s Lane takes a smaller white and green pumpkin with part of its vine still attached for more of a rustic look, pairing it with a cloche under a bed of moss.

Pumpkin with painted bird under a cloche
Miniature pumpkin with mossy bed under a cloche

Decorate Them with Thumbtacks or Furniture Nails

Got any thumbtacks or extra furniture nails lying around? If you don’t, you can easily pick them up for cheap. They’re the perfect tools for creating beautiful patterns on your pumpkins! Here’s an example of the furniture nails from Lovely Indeed and another of a letter punched into a pumpkin with thumbtacks from About.com DIY.

Pumpkins decorated with furniture nails
Painted pumpkin decorated with thumbtacks

Put Minis in Glass Cylinders

Mini pumpkins are the perfect alternative for smaller spaces. Sure, they look cute on their own, but why not add a bit more style to them by stacking them in a glass cylinder? Check out this example of traditional fall-colored pumpkins from StyleCaster and this other more Halloween-inspired alternative from Busy Mommy.

Pumpkins in tall glass cylinders
Pumpkins painted black and white in glass cylinder

What’s your favorite way to dress up your pumpkins for Halloween? Of course, nothing compares to testing your skills at pumpkin carving, but it’s nice to at least know there are a lot of other really fabulous and ridiculously easy pumpkin decorating options out there too!

Elise Moreau

I write for decoist.

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