Pumpkin carving is a blast. It’s also super messy and requires some skill to turn out something that looks great and ensures you didn’t waste that pumpkin.

If you’re a little wary of the mess and time it takes to carve a pumpkin successfully but still want to enjoy the fun of this Halloween tradition, don’t worry. You’ve come to the right place. There are lots of ways to decorate a pumpkin without cutting it. Most of them will cost less than the price of a pumpkin-carving toolkit. So roll up your sleeves, grab your pumpkin and some craft supplies, and get started with these easy DIYs!

Woodland Creature Pumpkin

These DIY critter pumpkins are probably the cutest thing ever. The best part? They’re super easy to make. If you are uncomfortable designing your creature, the tutorial includes patterns to cut out and create an owl, fox, or raccoon. All you need to make them is a pumpkin, some paint, cardstock craft paper or colored felt fabric, a sharpie, scissors, and an adhesive (like hot glue or mod podge).

The tutorial calls for faux pumpkins, but there’s no reason you can’t substitute the real thing in. You can make all sorts of adjustments, like adding googly eyes, switching the colors around, or even creating your creatures. There’s no limit to what you can do with this cute craft.

Glitter Pumpkins

Do you love glitter? Do you love pumpkins? Then this tutorial is for you! These pumpkins look fabulous on your doorstep or in a basket in your living room, and they’re so ridiculously easy to make.

All you’ll need is some glitter in whatever color you want your pumpkins to be, a mod podge, a craft brush, and some pumpkins. Smaller pumpkins with a stem are the easiest to work with for this particular tutorial. The tutorial recommends using faux pumpkins, but you can use the real thing. 

Easy BB-8 Pumpkin

If you or your kids are Star Wars fans, you undoubtedly loved the adorable droid BB-8. Make your cute BB-8 decoration to guard your doorstep against ghouls on Halloween! You’ll need two pumpkins, some white paint, hot glue, and duct tape. You can use some templates to create BB-8’s designs or wing them.

Sugar Skull Pumpkin

I don’t know about you, but I adore Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. There’s something that’s so undeniably awesome about how colorful and lively the holiday is. Sugar skulls are so beautiful, and carved pumpkins are so cool – why not combine them?

All you’ll need for this tutorial is a pumpkin, several colorful Sharpies (and one black one), white acrylic paint, a cutting board or mat, a xacto knife, a pencil, and paint brushes. The tutorial comes with a printable skull template that you can use to create your awesome designs.

Melted Crayon Pumpkin

This is an awesome craft to do for Halloween. Why? Because it’s so easy. You only need a pumpkin, crayons, white craft paint, and a hairdryer. Seriously, that’s it. The tutorial calls for a faux pumpkin, but again there’s no reason why you can’t use a real pumpkin and paint it white. Choose your color scheme, arrange your crayons, and slowly melt them using the hot setting on the hair dryer to get the dripping effect.