Affordable Painted Black Pumpkin Idea for Halloween

Spook-ify your Halloween porch decor with this easy painted black pumpkin tutorial.

As the eerie season of Halloween creeps in, black pumpkins are the must-have decoration to take your celebration to the next level. Why go through all the hassle of a carved pumpkin when you can create a unique and stylish one with black paint?

This article will cover the basics of how to paint a pumpkin black for Halloween so you can show off your creativity, scare off the ghouls and ghosts, and be the coolest house on the block. With this simple DIY project, you can guarantee to dazzle your visitors and have a truly memorable and spooktacular night.

Adding Halloween Porch Decor

Decide on Your Theme

Decorating my front porch for Halloween is something I think about all year long. This year my inspiration is to avoid bright colors and go black. Yep, black! Black pumpkins, black hats, black spider webs, black skulls, black bats and anything else that fits into the color scheme.

Clean the Porch

But first before you add any Halloween decoration, it is always a must to prep your area with some good housekeeping. Remove everything off of your porch and give the space a good cleaning. It is not lost on me that it's a little ironic to clean all of the spider webs off, just to put up more!

This duster is AMAZING for cleaning spider webs off my home exterior. It also has two other attachments I use inside the house for areas that are difficult to reach. See my other favorites for cleaning, here.

After putting all of your summer decor away, it's time to pull out holiday decorations for fall and Halloween.

How to Make a Painted Black Pumpkin

Supplies You'll Need

This whole project is so affordable because you can repurpose old pumpkins that you have in your home, like these pumpkins from last year. It's an easy way to cut down cost when you can reuse previous decorations.

• Any kind of faux pumpkin
• Black chalkboard spray paint
• Blue painter's tape
• Drop cloth

However, I do realize that not everyone may have pumpkins around their house. So for the cheapest option, look at your local craft store or a dollar store for plastic-type pumpkins, or even garage sale site. Easy DIYs like this make a big impact and save money!

Paint Your Faux Pumpkins

This is my selection of faux pumpkins I used in previous years. It doesn't matter what style of pumpkins you use as long as they are a finish that spray paint can cling to. And of course, you want to incorporate a variety of sizes from mini pumpkins to a large pumpkin too.

Lay all of your pumpkins on a drop cloth so paint doesn't go all over the place. Outside is the best place to do this. To give these pumpkins an easy finish, use a black spray paint. Specifically, a black chalkboard paint so it is a very flat finish.

Follow directions on your spray paint can. Make sure to begin with a light coat on the entire pumpkin, allow time to dry, and reapply a second coat or more as needed.

Painted Black Pumpkins With Faces

After painting my selection of faux pumpkins, I opted to buy more with faces. I bought 20 jack-o-lanterns in all different sizes. These orange pumpkins are also getting a black paint makeover. (Shop below)

These pumpkins may not all be available, but here are a few more that you can also try. Try these ones, this Jack pumpkin or even this classic one.

To paint the jack-o-lanterns, it requires very minimal skill level. Use blue tape to block out the face so the craft paint doesn't get inside the pumpkin. You could try masking tape in a pinch if you don't have painter's tape, but it's not guaranteed that paint won't find a way in.

Then, line the pumpkins up on a drop cloth outside and apply two coats of black chalkboard spray paint to each classic jack-o. You want a good solid color of black on there so if it needs a third coat, then go for it.

If these dark pumpkins are too heavy on the black for your liking, you can also opt for a black and white color scheme and incorporate a few solid white pumpkins into the mix. Either way, these paint colors are a great option for neutral decor.

I am using my battery-operated tea lights to light up my front steps for some frightful fun with these jack-o-lanterns. The inside will stay orange for some contrast during the day. This is a fun way to create a black custom color scheme that is unique and simple and reusable!

Black Pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns

Mix and match your two types of pumpkins if you also have a selection with faces. I wanted the entrance to my front door to be packed with black pumpkins and it looks fabulous. A great way to get some height and dimension is to stack a section of them.

It is a big perk to not have to carve pumpkins or clean pumpkin guts off of every surface in our home. If you are looking for a simple way to add a Halloween pumpkin to your porch, this is a fun option.

Halloween Porch Decor YouTube Video

Love these black pumpkins? You can also try out these super cute black and white sharpie pumpkins.

Additional Halloween Porch Decorations

To incorporate more black decorations to my front porch exterior, I am also adding last year's witch hats, spiders, bats and a sign I used inside the house.

Large Spiders

When decorating a front porch make sure to include a large hairy spider. Large items are a great way to add a big impact. You can also see them from the road. I have two of the same spiders and I found a a smaller white hairy one for a fun variation.

Adding a spider over the front is a fun way to accent your porch's main feature, the front door. I also put a big spider on the other end of the porch above the swing. This helps to merge the two spaces together. I put the smaller white spider on the outside of the columns.

To attach the spiders to my house I used command hooks cord bundlers. This allowed me to wrap the spider's leg around the hook.

Floating Witch Hats

My favorite Halloween decorations are floating witch hats. I buy cheap hats from Amazon. I have used the same ones for three years now. They hold up great and if one blows away or gets ruined I am not mad about it.

I didn't want to go overboard on the hats so I only hung up seven of them. I felt like that was enough to fill in the blank spaces, but not too many that all you see are floating witch hats.

To hang them I attached a clear hook to the porch ceiling. These hooks have been up for two years now. I tie fishing line around the top of the hat and then around the hook.

Flying Bats

Bats are a great and inexpensive way to take up a lot of space. They also help to carry your eye for a lasting impression.

I have used them for several years now. This year I needed a few more bats so I used black construction paper to make paper bats.

To attach the bats, use blue painter's tape. Rip a piece of tape big enough that you can roll it. But small enough that it doesn't stick out of the sides of the bat. I used painter's tape last year and they all stayed up. Plus, none of my paint came off. Win Win!!

Black Halloween Cloth

This cloth was a new addition this year. Now that it is up, I am wondering why the heck I never used it before. The front window was always a little bare and now this is a great focal point. This cloth is such a cool idea to hang over windows or take up a big area.

I use command hooks to hang the cloth above the window.

Halloween Porch Decor Wreath

A year ago I made these wreaths with coffee filters. They took hours and hours to make. I am happy to say they were worth it. It is so easy to switch the ribbon out for any season. If you don't have coffee filter wreaths a black wreath would do the trick and look amazing on a front door.

Skeleton

Meet Frankie. He is our resident skeleton that comes to visit every year. I have seen black skeletons, and while they look cool, the white is preferred. I love how the white pops off the black cushion and pillows.

To make sure Frankie doesn't move, we zip tied him to the swing. We can't have a skeleton walking off in the middle of the night.

Spooky Front Porch Lighting

This year for lighting I will be using various sizes of solar lights. This way I can spotlight certain items to create a spooky scene. See them here.

I also use my tea lights in the jack-o-lanterns. These tea lights on Amazon that have a remote and a timer. They have the option to be left on for 4 hours, 6 hours, or 8 hours. This will be a great option to light up my pumpkins without burning through batteries.

We are now ready for a Halloween party or two!

And don't forget to check out last year's front porch decor ideas here And our last homes Halloween front porch here. View ideas for decorating inside your home for Halloween here.

Painted Black Pumpkin Decor

Don't settle for real pumpkins this year. With the increasing popularity of no-carve pumpkin decorations, why not take your Halloween decorations to the next level this year with painted black pumpkins? You don’t have to settle for traditional orange when it comes to sprucing up your home this October.

This Halloween, make your porch stand out with a stylish twist on pumpkin decorating. With just a few easy steps, you’ll be able to paint black pumpkins that will have your neighbors envious of your porch decorations.

Happy Haunting!

Brooke