Last Updated on September 20, 2025 by Sheryl Cooper
Inside: No Mess Pumpkin Art with Free Printable! This activity is a go-to for toddlers and preschoolers that don’t like the feeling of paint, and it’s fun!
Our toddlers and preschoolers love to mix colors, and in October we do quite a bit with yellow and red. I love to come up with different ways to do this type of activity.
We’ve mixed colors with playdough, finger paint, and paper tubes. I recalled our freezer bag painting and that’s when I came up with this no mess pumpkin art – with a free printable!
It’s super easy to set up and all the mess is contained in the bag. (Not that we care about mess – we make our fair share of messy art and we love it!)
Toddlers and preschoolers who normally have sensitivities to touching paint will love this no mess pumpkin art because their hands stay clean. And yet they can still feel the squishiness of the paint as they move it around inside the bag.
Ready to give it a try? Scroll down to the end of this post for your free printable and get started!
No Mess Pumpkin Art with Free Printable
Supplies
- Red washable tempera paint
- Yellow washable tempera paint
- Sealable gallon-sized plastic storage or freezer bags
- Pumpkin printable (download at the end of this post)
Preparation
Cut around the pumpkin printable so you are removing the background of the printable. Insert it into the bag.
Then squirt a bit of red and yellow tempera paint. (Our preschoolers wanted to do this themselves. We were very close so we could tell them when to stop, or they would have kept going!)
Since we had six children at the art table at a time, I prepped six bags with paint and the printable, so they were ready to go.
The Activity
Make sure the bag is completely sealed and instruct your children to press on it, moving the paint around.
Once they get the hang of it, they are moving the paint everywhere inside the bag!
They will start noticing a third color is being made. Like magic!
When finished, remove paper pumpkin from the plastic bag and let dry thoroughly.
Modification
Prefer to have your children touch the paint? Don’t use the bag! Let them mix the colors using their hands!
Free Pumpkin Printable
(Note: the design of the printable is a bit different than that shown in the photos.)
Watch the Video
More Fun
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