Gothic Home Maker - Bringing goth home since 2007.

I love Halloween, but I really can't stand carving pumpkins. It's smelly and squishy and makes your pumpkins rot so much faster. Then putting a candle in one? That's a little big of nausea for someone who can't stand the smell anyway. So in recent years I've bought a pumpkin and put it on my porch au naturale with a few candles around it.

For this year, I'd like to do something with my pumpkin beyond sitting it unadorned outside, and luckily I've found some lovely ideas that will work great.

Better Homes and Gardens has some neat ideas. (Of course you have to buy their special Halloween issue in order to get the really great ones.) I was especially taken by these Silver Swirl Pumpkins which are decorating using spirals of solder. I think this one would look really neat if you paint the pumpkin a darker color first.

Speaking of painting pumpkins, I really love the black and white painted pumpkins that seem to be all the rage these days. I found the image above at, of all places, Country Living Magazine.

But leave it to Martha to not only give us glittered pumpkins, but two non-pumpkin alternatives, paper-mache pumpkins and carved acorn squash.