Budget-Friendly Pumpkin Decorating With Kids: A Low-Waste Fall Tradition
Try budget-friendly pumpkin decorating with kids using a real pumpkin, craft supplies you already own, and free materials from nature. Then make the most of your pumpkin by roasting the seeds, using it for cooking or baking, and composting the rest for a simple, low-waste fall family tradition.
9/12/20269 min read
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Pumpkin decorating is one of those simple fall traditions that doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to be fun.
Since Brayden is five, we prefer decorating the outside of our pumpkin instead of carving it. He can be involved in almost the entire activity, and rather than buying a pumpkin decorating kit, we start by looking through the craft supplies we already have at home.
I also love using a real pumpkin. It’s a natural seasonal decoration that doesn’t have to be packed away and stored when fall is over. Even better, we can find ways to use it before returning what’s left to the earth through composting.
For our family, that means decorating with what we have, roasting the pumpkin seeds, and composting the rest. For families who love eating pumpkin, it can also mean turning the pumpkin into breads, muffins, soups, and other fall recipes.
Here’s how you can make pumpkin decorating with kids budget-friendly and low-waste, from the day you bring your pumpkin home until it’s time to compost it.
Why We Choose Real Pumpkins
There are plenty of reusable artificial pumpkins available, and being able to use something year after year certainly has its advantages.
For our family, though, I prefer real pumpkins.
Plastic and foam decorations require resources to manufacture and eventually have to be disposed of. A real pumpkin, on the other hand, is biodegradable and can have another purpose after we’re finished using it as a decoration.
It can potentially become food for your family, the seeds can be roasted, and the remaining pumpkin can be composted.
Moreover, there’s another practical benefit I really appreciate: I don’t have to store it.
When the season is over, there’s no pumpkin taking up space in a storage bin for the next 11 months.
We get to enjoy it during fall and then find a responsible way to use or compost it when we’re finished.
Decorate Your Pumpkin With Supplies You Already Have
You don’t need to buy a pumpkin decorating kit to create something fun.
If you have kids, chances are you already have some kind of craft stash hiding in a drawer, cabinet, closet, or bin.
That’s the first place we look.
Depending on what you have, kids could use things like:
Construction paper
Cardboard
Yarn
Ribbon
Fabric scraps
Pipe cleaners
Pom-poms
Googly eyes
Leftover craft supplies from other projects
Instead of starting the activity by heading to the store, put everything you already have on the table and see what your child comes up with.
Not only does this save money, but I think it makes the activity more creative.
There’s no picture on a box showing kids what their finished pumpkin is supposed to look like. They get to make it their own.
Look to Nature for Free Decorating Supplies
If you don’t have much of a craft stash—or you just want to add something different to your pumpkin—head outside.
Fall provides plenty of free decorating inspiration.
Depending on what’s available where you live and what you’re allowed to collect, look for fallen:
Leaves
Small twigs
Pinecones
Acorns
Dried grasses
Other interesting natural materials
Gathering the supplies can become part of the activity.
Take a family walk or turn it into a little nature scavenger hunt. Let the kids look for interesting shapes, textures, and colors they might be able to incorporate into their pumpkin.
Suddenly, one pumpkin has given you an outdoor activity, a craft project, and a fall decoration without requiring a cart full of new supplies.
Think About What You’ll Do With Your Pumpkin Before Decorating It
If you want to cook or compost your pumpkin later, it’s worth thinking about that before the decorating begins.
Paint, glitter, permanent markers, stickers, and lots of glue may make it harder to use or compost the pumpkin afterward.
Instead, try creating decorations that can be removed.
Kids can make paper eyes, cardboard ears, yarn hair, fabric accessories, little hats, or faces made from natural materials.
Once you’re finished displaying the pumpkin, remove all the decorations and separate everything based on whether it can be reused, recycled, composted, or needs to go in the trash.
This makes it much easier to deal with the actual pumpkin afterward.
Moreover, if you’re planning to eat any part of the pumpkin, be especially careful about what comes into contact with it.
Save the Pumpkin Seeds: A Tradition From My Childhood
One part of our pumpkin definitely won’t be going into the compost pile.
The seeds.
Roasting pumpkin seeds is something I remember doing when I was little, and now it’s a tradition I get to pass down to Brayden.
After we open the pumpkin, we’ll scoop everything out and separate the seeds from the stringy pulp.
Once they’re cleaned and dried, they can be lightly coated with oil, seasoned, and roasted for a simple fall snack.
You can keep them traditional with a little salt or experiment with different seasonings.
For me, though, this part is about more than getting another use out of the pumpkin.
I love being able to take something I remember doing as a child and now do it with my own son.
At the same time, it gives us another opportunity to talk about using what we have and looking for value in something before automatically throwing it away.
Can You Cook or Bake With a Decorating Pumpkin?
Yes!
Our family isn’t particularly fond of pumpkin-flavored foods, so cooking with our pumpkin probably isn’t the best way for us to use it.
But I know plenty of families wait all year for pumpkin season.
If that’s your family, cooking or baking with your pumpkin can be another way to get more value from something you originally purchased as a fall decoration.
Many pumpkins are edible, although large pumpkins grown primarily for carving tend to be more watery and less sweet than varieties commonly sold as pie or sugar pumpkins.
If you know you’d like to eat your pumpkin after decorating it, consider choosing a smaller edible variety from the beginning.
Cooked pumpkin can be pureed and used in foods such as:
Pumpkin bread
Muffins
Pancakes or waffles
Soups
Pasta sauces
Baked oatmeal
Cookies and other baked goods
Before cooking with a decorated pumpkin, make sure it is still fresh and firm with no mold, rot, or animal damage. You should also avoid using a pumpkin for food if you’ve decorated it with materials that could make it unsafe to eat.
For pumpkin-loving families, one real pumpkin can become a family activity, fall decoration, snack, and ingredient for several recipes.
Our Plan: Seeds for Us, Pumpkin for the Compost
As much as I love finding ways to use everything we buy, I also think it’s important to be realistic.
My family doesn’t really enjoy the taste of pumpkin.
I could make pumpkin bread, soup, and muffins just because I don’t want the pumpkin to go to waste—but if nobody eats them, I haven’t really prevented waste.
So our goal isn’t to eat every part of our pumpkin.
Instead, we’ll enjoy it as a decoration, roast the seeds like I did growing up, and compost the remaining pumpkin when we’re finished.
For another family, using the whole pumpkin might mean cooking and baking with almost all of it.
For us, composting makes more sense.
Low-waste living doesn’t have to look exactly the same in every household. The goal is to find the option that works for your family.
How to Break Down a Pumpkin for Composting
You don’t have to put an entire pumpkin into the compost pile and wait for nature to take over.
Breaking it into smaller pieces will help it decompose more efficiently.
1. Remove All Decorations
Start by taking everything off the pumpkin.
Remove paper, ribbon, yarn, stickers, tape, googly eyes, toothpicks, plastic pieces, or anything else you used while decorating.
Separate anything you can save and reuse for another craft.
2. Remove the Seeds
If you’re roasting the seeds, scoop them out and separate them from the pulp.
If you don’t want the seeds, they can generally be composted along with the rest of the pumpkin.
3. Cut the Pumpkin Into Smaller Pieces
Instead of putting the pumpkin into your compost whole, cut or break it into manageable pieces.
Smaller pieces expose more of the pumpkin to the microorganisms and other decomposers doing the work in your compost pile, helping it break down faster.
4. Add It to Your Compost
Add the pumpkin pieces to your compost along with the other materials you normally use.
Pumpkin contains a lot of moisture, so mix or cover it with dry, carbon-rich materials such as dry leaves, shredded plain cardboard, or other appropriate “browns.”
Fall happens to be a great time to have plenty of dry leaves available.
5. Let Nature Do the Rest
From there, your pumpkin can gradually break down along with the other organic material in your compost.
Eventually, what started as your family’s fall decoration can become part of the compost you use to enrich your soil.
That’s a pretty satisfying ending for one little pumpkin.
Don’t Compost at Home? Look for a Pumpkin Collection
Not everyone has a compost pile, but that doesn’t automatically mean your pumpkin has to go into the trash.
After Halloween, some communities, farms, gardens, and organizations hold pumpkin collection or composting events.
Search for pumpkin composting near me or check your town or county’s website to see whether there’s a collection program in your area.
Always check the program’s rules before bringing your pumpkin. Many require you to remove paint, glitter, candles, stickers, and other decorations
Pumpkin Decorating Doesn’t Have to Be Pinterest-Perfect
Pinterest is full of beautiful pumpkin decorating ideas. While I love looking through them for inspiration, our pumpkin doesn’t need to look perfect.
I’d rather let Brayden dig through the craft supplies we already have, collect a few things outside, and see what he comes up with.
Kids don’t need an expensive craft kit or a picture-perfect pumpkin to have fun.
For us, the experience is more important.
We’re spending time together, being creative, saving money, and finding ways to make the most of something we’ve purchased.
When fall is over, even taking apart and composting our pumpkin can become part of the experience.
Final Thoughts
Budget-friendly pumpkin decorating can be incredibly simple.
Buy a real pumpkin, look through the craft supplies you already have, head outside for some free inspiration, and let the kids create.
Then, when the season ends, don’t automatically throw the pumpkin away.
If your family loves pumpkin, use the flesh for cooking and baking. Save the seeds for roasting. Compost whatever you can’t use.
For our family, the plan is even simpler:
Decorate it. Enjoy it. Roast the seeds. Compost the rest.
It’s an inexpensive fall tradition, creates very little to store or throw away, and gives us another opportunity to show Brayden that things don’t always have to go into the trash when we’re finished with them.
This year, I’m looking forward to seeing just how little of our pumpkin we actually have to throw away.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.
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Pumpkin Decorating with Kids
You don’t need to buy a lot of special supplies to decorate pumpkins with kids. We use craft supplies we already have whenever possible, but a few reusable and multipurpose items can make decorating—and using the pumpkin afterward—a little easier.
Washable paints are a kid-friendly option for decorating pumpkins and can be reused for crafts throughout the year. Check your existing craft supplies before buying anything new—you may already have everything you need.
A versatile art set gives kids plenty of supplies to get creative with their pumpkins. We already use our Crayola art set for different projects, making it something we can pull out for pumpkin decorating without buying a separate kit just for fall.
If you open your pumpkin after you’re finished displaying it, a pumpkin scooper makes it easier to remove the seeds and pulp. Save the seeds for roasting instead of tossing them out.
Baking pans come in handy for roasting pumpkin seeds or making a pumpkin recipe. Since they’re useful year-round, they’re a much more practical purchase than something you’ll only use during pumpkin season.
Reusable silicone baking mats are great for roasting pumpkin seeds and fall baking. They can be washed and used again instead of reaching for disposable liners every time you bake.
If you aren’t going to eat the pumpkin—or once you’ve used everything you can—composting is a simple way to put the remaining pumpkin to use. Over time, those scraps can break down into compost you can use in your garden.
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