Halloween Pumpkin Decorating for Young Children

Items Needed:
* Pumpkin
* Halloween Stickers
* Paint or Markers
* Stencils
* Pipe cleaners or ribbon (optional)
* Glue and shells (or other decorative elements)

(NOTE: the nature of this craft makes it better as an indoor than an outdoor pumpkin, the exception being if you only paint the pumpkin.)

If you have a young child, carving a pumpkin for Halloween may not be your ideal craft project so here are some ideas for the younger set to get into the Halloween spirit.

If you have stencils or want to buy them, you can find ones with Halloween shapes. This is really better for an older child of at least 5 or 6 or you can be like me and paint it for your child. You also can just let your younger child "paint" the pumpkin however they like. It likely won't be display-worthy, but your child will have fun painting it.

The other option for a toddler or preschooler is to have them put stickers on the pumpkin. We got these great Halloween foam stickers from Michaels that allowed you to put masks on the foam stickers. You could also use glow-in-the-dark stickers.

You also can use markers or paints to draw faces on your pumpkins as we did with one of the smaller pumpkins pictured. My daughter decided her pumpkin should have arms so we just twisted a pipe cleaner to the stem. A painted pumpkin should stand up to being outside; you could also spray seal it (outside) for added protection.

And the last project is really up to what you have and the imagination of your child. We had some colored shells so we glued them to the pumpkin but you could use gems or sprinkle glitter to make unique designs. One thing you should know is that some things were too heavy to stay glued to the sides of the pumpkins so you'd need to hold them longer (not ideal when helping young children) or glue them to the top as we did or use flatter and lighter things to decorate the pumpkin's sides.

Any or all of these crafts are quick, easy and fun for all ages an