Printable Pumpkin Stencils (Bats and Witches)

Download these cool printable pumpkin stencils to help make your pumpkin carving easy peasy this fall!

Hello there! My name is Linda from tortagialla.com and I’m a graphic designer who loves to design and share printable downloads. Today I have some printable pumpkin stencils for free download. They make great templates and guides for your pumpkin carving as well as other types of Halloween themed craft projects.

You might also enjoy the Jack O’Lantern Faces Printable.

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When Autumn rolls around, we come upon Halloween and all the fun crafts and activities that go along with it. I’m definitely a fan of decorating and especially pumpkin carving with the kids. It’s a really enjoyable craft activity for the whole family. Each family member can pick out their pumpkin and decorate away!

I have designed these printable pumpkin stencils to help make the process less stressful. It’s helpful to have a design ready, so you can just concentrate on having fun together as a family. For my little kids, I sometimes just let them draw or paint on the pumpkin, until they are old enough to actually carve themselves. Either way you can use the printable stencils as a guide for the design motif.

Download The Free Printable pumpkin Stencils

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What You Need:

• Sign-up to download the FREE PDF
• Printer paper
• Printer
• Pumpkin carving supplies
• Optional: cardstock, paints, glitter

Tips on Using Printable Pumpkin Stencils

The beauty of using digital printables is that you can print out your pumpkin stencils as many times as you need it and even change the sizing to match your pumpkin size. It’s easy to print at home, so don’t hesitate to play around with your printer settings and percentages to get the exact print out you need. Feel free to test things out!

Since you are using these designs as a guide or template, you do not need to print at high quality. Draft print-outs can save ink and you will still have the shape of the design readily usable for your pumpkin carving or painting.

Transferring the Stencil Design

First, you should have your design printed out and sized how you need it for your particular pumpkin. The easiest way to transfer the design onto the pumpkin itself is to tape the paper on your pumpkin and trace with a pencil or dull stick to get the lines of the design imprinted onto the skin of the pumpkin. I find that to be the easiest most effective process. Then you’ll have the design marked into the pumpkin, so you can toss the paper and slowly work directly on your pumpkin.

Go Beyond Carving

The classic Halloween pumpkin decoration is to carve a cool motif into your pumpkin, so you can light it up from the inside and have nighttime decor. However, that is not the only option available to you, especially if you don’t like lighting candles or want something to enjoy all day long and not just in the dark.

Especially for little kids, I find that painting or decorating the pumpkin design is a more fun and safe process. You can still use the printable pumpkin stencils to get a design onto your pumpkin surface. But then you can switch and use paints, craft tissue or even glitter and stickers to decorate the design.

There really is no limit, so use your imagination. Shop your own craft supplies for any type of material that can be used as decoration. You can really have a lot of fun with unconventional materials. For example, one year I had my little kids glue little pasta pieces to the design marked on our pumpkins. Then they painted over them with various colors!

Or consider a white pumpkin with a design created by adding glue and black glitter! Very chic and cool, right? So this pumpkin decoration idea can really go beyond simply crafting with your kids as well. You can transform this into a cool home decor project with crafty friends too!

Tips on Preserving your Carved Pumpkin

For those of you who love carving pumpkins, I know you want your masterpiece to last as long as possible. I’ve definitely learned my lesson from the past, because living in a humid area, our carved pumpkins didn’t seem to last very long before shriveling up and attracting bugs!

So how can you preserve carved pumpkins as long as possible? I have learned that you can soak the entire pumpkin in bleach to sort of “treat it” and make it last longer. Others have told me to spray it with an acrylic seal that can also help it last longer and not attract bugs. Some people also just use hair spray since you probably already have that in your house. Another tip is to use petroleum jelly to coat the exposed and cut parts, because it creates a protective layer to make the pumpkin shrivel up less.

If you live in a cold climate, your carved pumpkin can definitely last a week or more. But most likely your pumpkin will look fresh only 3 to a maximum of 5 days, so keep that in mind when scheduling your pumpkin carving session.

What’s Next? 

If you liked this printable pumpkin stencils PDF be sure to check out my blog for more digital freebies – Tortagialla digital printables blog.

More Digital Printable Downloads

Also, check out all the other free printables and other DIY ideas:

• Halloween Candy Bar Wrappers
• DIY Printable Halloween Cards
• Coloring Pages for Girls Free Printable