While full moons are frequently thought of as a symbol of Halloween, full moons on Halloween are actually pretty rare.
Here’s Exactly How to Carve Your Dog or Cat’s Face on a Pumpkin for Halloween
It’s easy to create a pumpkin carving stencil that features your favorite Halloween character—your pet!
Kristin Cleveland combines her love of pets and her experience as a project creator to design doable craft projects for pet parents. She has over 25 years of experience in project design, publication design, photo art direction, and branding.
Published on September 27, 2021
Halloween brings out the creative, um, spirit in all of us. And carving a pumpkin with your dog or cat’s face on it is one sure way to show your neighbors what a clever pet parent you are. When trick-or-treaters come knocking at your door, your pet will greet them in the sweetest (and safest) way: with their face glowing from a jack-o-lantern.
It’s not hard to carve a one-of-a-kind jack-o-lantern that tells the world “An awesome pet lives here.” You don’t even have to be an especially good artist. All you need is a good photo of your pet’s face, the ability to trace, and a little time to render your creation. Plus a pumpkin, of course.
If you’d like your masterpiece to last more than one season, you can carve it from a fake pumpkin. A dremel tool is really helpful for making cuts and patterns in artificial pumpkins. But a real pumpkin works just as well (although less permanently); wood-carving tools will be helpful for that.
Start with a photo of your pet that shows her face clearly. You’ll use a copier or printer to make a high-contrast black-and-white printout of the photo, sized to fit your pumpkin. With tracing paper, trace the outline and details of your pet’s photo. Our step-by-step instructions below offer some tips about which areas to fill in more and less heavily. This image on the tracing paper becomes your stencil, which you’ll use to transfer the design to your pumpkin. Then cut and etch your pumpkin according to the design, and you’re ready to greet trick-or-treaters.
PHOTO: Kristin Cleveland PHOTO: Kristin Cleveland PHOTO: Kristin Cleveland
Do our example pumpkins still seem complex? The trick is that you want your design to mix areas where you cut through the whole pumpkin and areas where you just etch away the pumpkin’s outer skin. This combination will create spots where the light inside your pumpkin glows more brightly (where the whole pumpkin is carved out) and less brightly (where you’ve only removed the pumpkin skin). This results in an image that captures the nuances of your pet’s face and the texture of her fur.
Note that you can also use these steps to carve a pumpkin from a preexisting stencil, too. Just skip Steps 3 and 4 below.
Materials You’ll Need to Carve Your Pet’s Face into a Pumpkin
- Real or fake pumpkin in desired size and color
- Photo or image of your pet that clearly shows the face
- Copier or home printer
- Ruler
- Tracing paper
- Pencil
- Permanent markers (fine tip and medium tip)
- Painters tape
- Tool for scraping seeds and pulp (if using a real pumpkin)
- Small-blade pumpkin saw (for cutting all the way through the pumpkin skin)
- Toothpick or something sharp to transfer pattern (we show tools from a commercial pumpkin carving kit)
- Dremel drill with fine and medium bits (for etching fake pumpkins)
- Wood-carving tool set (for etching real pumpkins)
- Toothbrush or other tool for cleaning up the cut edges
How to Carve Your Pet’s Face into a Pumpkin Step-by-Step
Other than the need to clean out the seeds inside a real pumpkin, the steps for creating a stencil and carving your design are the same for a real pumpkin or a fake one. If you’re using a fake pumpkin, just begin with Step #2.
1. Clean Out Your Pumpkin
Use the small-blade pumpkin saw to cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin. If you’re using a real pumpkin, remove the seeds and pulp and scrape the inside of the pumpkin skin to create a smooth interior. This will make cutting easier and give the pumpkin a cleaner final look.
2. Determine the Size of Your Pet Pumpkin Stencil
Measure the surface of the pumpkin to determine the appropriate size of your pet’s face. As much as possible, stay within the flattest area of the surface.
3. Print a Photo of Your Pet’s Face
Using a copier or your home printer, resize the image of your pet’s face to the measurements determined in Step 1. Print out a black-and-white image at this size, increasing the contrast of the printout to help define the features. You will only focus on your pet’s face, so you can ignore all the other areas of the photo. If you have Photoshop or photo editing software, you can erase the areas around the face that will not be carved and only print the face image.
4. Trace the Photo to Create an Outline for Your Stencil
Place a piece of tracing paper over the black-and-white printout of your pet’s face. With a pencil, trace the main features of the face (ears, eyes, nose, mouth) and the general outline of the outer face. You can paperclip or tape the two pieces of paper together and hold it up to a window for tracing. The backlight will make finding the features much easier.
PHOTO: Brie Passano PHOTO: Brie Passano
5. Fill In the Details of Your Pet Stencil
Using the pencil marks as your base pattern, draw the final outline (above) of your pet’s face, eyes, nose, mouth, whiskers, ears, and other features you chose to include in Step 3. The areas you select to fill in with solid black will be the areas that are cut through on the pumpkin. These cut sections should be the areas you want to feature the most, as they will be the brightest.
Eyes, nose, and ears are defining features that should be brightest. The areas not filled in will be etched using a dremel or wood-carving tools for a much lighter glow, depending on the depth you etch the pumpkin’s surface.
TIP: If you have access to an iPad or photo editing software, you can create your stencil by electronically tracing your pet’s photo.
6. Tape Your Pet Stencil to the Pumpkin
Once you are happy with the pattern you’ve created, separate the tracing paper and the photo. Then place the tracing paper over the pumpkin and carefully fold the edges of the paper to shape it around the pumpkin’s curve (below). Try to keep the design as flat to the pumpkin as possible. Tape to hold it in place.
7. Transfer the Design to Your Pumpkin
Using a sharp tool, like a toothpick or a pattern tracer from a pumpkin carving kit, poke holes through the tracing paper onto the pumpkin, following all of the outlines of the pattern and around the edges of the black solid areas to be cut (above).
8. Check Your Outline
Remove the tracing paper. You should see an exact outline of your pet’s face and features (below). Determine if there are additional details you want to add to your design and poke additional holes if needed.
9. Begin Carving the Cut-Out Areas of Your Pumpkin
First you’ll cut out the areas that are heavily shaded black on your stencil (below). It’s important to start with the smallest, finest features and work up to the larger sections that need to be cut. Keep the small pumpkin saw blade straight (perpendicular to the pumpkin surface) and carefully cut all the way through the surface of the pumpkin. Refer to your pattern before cutting to make sure you are cutting the correct area and correct shape.
10. Etch the Details of Your Design
Once all the cuts are made, begin etching (removing the skin of the pumpkin but not cutting through!) the larger areas of the design and defining the general face area. Etching should be done in stages, since the deeper you etch the more the light will shine through. To create a fur texture, etch areas deeper, creating ridges that resemble fur. Refer to your pet’s photo and your sketches as you develop the face. TIP: Be very careful around the cut-out areas, as they can easily be broken or damaged if the etching gets too thin!
11. Clean Up Any Rough Cuts Around the Design
When all your cuts and etching is complete, use a toothbrush or similar tool to rub away rough spots along the design. Place a light source in the bottom of the pumpkin, and you’re ready for Halloween!
Project designs by Kristin Cleveland.
Halloween DIY Project: Painted Cat Pumpkin
Updated: 10/19/18 – I thought I’d spruce up and reshare this post from a few years ago. I’ve always been so pleased with how my painted cat pumpkin turned out and hope someone else enjoys seeing it and maybe tries turning their own pumpkin into one of their cats!
One of my favorite Halloween/Fall activities is visiting a pumpkin patch and picking out a couple pumpkins to bring home and decorate. My husband and I have carved and painted pumpkins all kinds of ways, but one of my favorite pumpkin projects was the year we decided to turn our pumpkins into cats!
Which one is mine and which one is my husband’s? I’ll give you one guess…
The Sampy Cat pumpkin is mine!
The resemblance is uncanny, right. You can’t tell in this photo, but I even made the tip of the cat pumpkin’s tail white with a black dot on the tip. That is one of Sampy’s most adorable features – I couldn’t leave it off his pumpkin-likeness.
Bobby’s pumpkin! We’ve decided that it looks like a cross between the Cheshire Cat and a raccoon.
As you can tell from the photos, Bobby and I had very different pumpkin painting strategies. I had my pumpkin planned out in my head before I even started. Bobby picked out random colors and art supplies and came up with his creation on the fly. I think both turned out pretty neat!
If you’re interested in creating a cat pumpkin like this, here is a list of supplies used and a step-by-step guide:
Painted Cat Pumpkin Supplies:
Bobby used all of the same supplies too, but he also used feathers for his cat pumpkin’s hair.
Step 1: I painted my entire pumpkin black, then let it dry overnight.
Step 2: The next day, I painted the face. I had to use multiple layers of yellow paint tin order to cover up the black.
Step 3: I cut out two ears from a sheet of thick black felt. Then I painted the pink triangles and let it dry.
Step 4: While the ears were drying, I cut the white pipe cleaners in half for the whiskers and hot-glued them on.
Step 5: I hot-glued the ears on.
Step 6: I twisted and bent the giant black pipe cleaner until I was happy with the tail’s shape and size. Then I dipped the end of it in white paint.
Step 7: I hot-glued the tail onto the side of the pumpkin. This turned out to be trickier than anticipated. The weight of the tail was more than could be supported by the base of the tail, so it just drooped over. I had to use a twist-tie (like from a loaf of bread) to rig it up so it would stay sticking up in the air.
Step 8: I added the black dot to the tip of the tail.
Voila! The finished product:
The cool thing about this project is that it was really easy and simple. Also, the colors used can be changed to make your cat pumpkin look like your own cat! I chose to do a likeness of Sampy because his colorings are very simple – black and white. The other kitties are striped and hodge-podgey. I am not much of an artist and did not feel like I could accurately portray them as pumpkins in a very flattering way. I wish I could have painted all of them!
So what do you think? Will you be painting your own cat pumpkin? I’d love to see it if you do!
Cat pumpkin carving ideas
No matter which of these pumpkin carving ideas you choose, your cat pumpkin carving will look great!
If you want to go all out while carving one of these cat pumpkin ideas, you could even wear a DIY cat costume. Find an easy tutorial in this post filled with DIY adult Halloween costumes.
Let us know in the comments below which idea you like best!
Don’t forget to share these cat pumpkin carving ideas on social media with your friends!
Here’s a tweet to get you started:
If you’re looking for some no-carve pumpkin ideas, make sure to check out our tutorials for DIY scrap paper pumpkins and white chenille pumpkins.
If you enjoy drinking wine and have extra corks, try making these wine cork pumpkins. Don’t forget to check out our wine temperatures guide after you’re done, which has a section with ways to recycle wine corks if you have any left over.
Cat national day
Since you’ve found your way to this post, it’s pretty safe to assume you like cats! Did you know, cats are such lovable animals that they have several national days of the year dedicated to them?
- National Black Cat Day – This day was created to raise awareness about adopting black cats. Check out more info on the day, and fun facts about black cats.
- Cuddly Kitten Day – Head to this post for some cute kitten photos, facts about kittens, and more info on the day!
- Black Cat Appreciation Day – Learn more about this day specifically created for appreciating black cats.
- National Cat Day – This national day falls in October. Make sure to celebrate if if you’re a cat lover!
There’s also Carve A Pumpkin Day that falls on October 31. Use that day to pick one of the kitty pumpkin carving ideas from above to try!
Interested in learning more about national days? You’re in luck – there are close to 2000 national days in the year and over 150 of them are celebrated in October.
To see them all, have a look at this post to discover more about the national days in October.
For puzzle fans, head to our October word search printable of national days for a fun word find puzzle.
Pin these cat pumpkin carvings for later
Would you like a reminder of this post featuring these creative cat pumpkin carvings? Just pin this image to one of your Halloween boards on Pinterest so that you can easily find it later.
About the author
Since graduating from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Jess has been living and working in Los Angeles, CA. She is a freelance writer, specializing in content related to fashion, food and drink and film industry topics. Find out more about Jess here.
