We have crafted a lot this October. Halloween is so much fun and there is something lovely about sitting around the table after school to craft together. Our most recent craft was decorating a papier mache pumpkin. As much as we love to carve a real pumpkin, our fingerprint painted pumpkin for kids is a lot less messy!

Fingerprint painted pumpkin for kids

We already had the papier mache pumpkin, I think it came from Hobbycraft.

We gave it a quick coat of white paint to provide a plain background for the fingerprints.

Then we found orange paint, as well as green and black pens. We set up our pumpkin on some cardboard to protect the table, and put an apron on my daughter to protect her clothes.

She dipped a finger, or thumb, into the orange paint and carefully pressed it onto the pumpkin.

She had a lot of fun and enjoyed trying out different fingers to make different shapes. She covered the whole pumpkin, trying to space out the paint as she went.

When the whole pumpkin was covered she set it aside to dry.

Then we were able to make the orange fingerprints into little pumpkins by added a stalk with the green pen. My daughter decided to add faces for each little pumpkin with a black pen.

She was delighted with her pumpkin decoration. Our painted version makes a great alternative to a carved pumpkin, and was a lot safer for her little hands too. This should last a good few years and I look forward to it taking central stage in our Halloween decorations.