Tattoo Paper Craft Pumpkins

An easy pumpkin tattoo paper craft for fall 🍁…

I wasn’t quite sure how this fall craft idea was going to turn out, but I love it. And it was pretty darn easy.

And if you’re looking for other fun pumpkin craft ideas this season, there are more listed at the bottom of this post.

Here’s a quick and easy video tutorial to get you started. It will really explain everything you need to know in the shortest amount of time…

For this tattoo paper craft pumpkin, you won’t need a lot of supplies:

How to make your Tattoo Paper Craft Pumpkin

1. Pick out your image(s).

Decide what graphic(s) you want on your pumpkin. I found these really awesome vintage feathers on one of my fave sites to look for cool images, The Graphics Fairy.

These particular feathers were part of my monthly membership plan there, which you could join as well.

Remember though, you can put ANYTHING on these. I may try it again with colorful feathers, or fun halloween-y images like little witches or something.

2. Format image(s) onto a document and print.

8.5×11 in size. I used Word, but you could use any word processing program, or photoshop if you’re super handy and tech-savvy (which I’m not).

Couple notes about this part:

• this paper is kinda expensive, so I try to jam as many images onto one sheet of tattoo paper as I can.
• print a draft on regular printer paper first to make sure everything prints as expected. You don’t want to make a mistake with the actual tattoo paper if you can avoid it!

Use print settings for photo paper, and glossy. I printed with the quality set to high, and color obviously, not black and white. But different printers behave differently, so what worked on mine may be a bit different on yours.

For my printer, I load paper with the desired print-side down. The tattoo paper was inserted with the glossy side down. The glossy side is the one we want to print on. Once you’ve printed your image(s) and allowed them to completely dry, we can move on.

3. Adhere the adhesive paper to the tattoos. 

The tattoo paper comes with a glossy adhesive cover that you must apply once you’ve printed the tattoos.

It’s a bit tricky getting this on. Start by peeling the tiny strip at one end of the page off and aligning that on the top of your tattoo page.

Then slowly and carefully apply the adhesive along the length of the tattoo paper.

If it gets a little off, it’s not the end of the world, but you cannot pull it up and try to re-align it because you’ll damage the tattoo image(s) below.

Just do the best you can to stay on track.

Take a straight edge, like a craft stick or credit card and smooth out the adhesive cover so that there are no bubbles anywhere.

4. Cut out tattoo paper image(s).

This can be a bit time consuming depending on how many images you’ll be using. These images will look best if you cut around your images pretty closely.

5. Apply tattoos.

Grab a bowl of water and a sponge as well as your faux pumpkin. You’ll want to set your pumpkin onto a towel because this is going to be a wet endeavor.

Grab a tattoo, and carefully separate the glossy adhesive cover page from the tattoo. Place the tattoo face down in the desired location on your pumpkin.

Wet your sponge. I mean really wet. And gently press the wet sponge onto the paper back of the tattoo. Moisten all of the tattoo, edges, etc.

DO NOT MOVE THE TATTOO around as you’re wetting it…that will break the image on the tattoo.

Keep it still as you are getting the paper back wet. Within about 20 seconds, the paper back will release from the tattoo. Don’t remove the paper back unless it has completely loosened from the tattoo. It should slide right off. If not, it’s not damp enough/ready to detach.

Continue this process one by one for each tattoo you want to place on your faux pumpkin.

That’s that! Another fall pumpkin craft done! Hope you like the way yours turned out. I’m definitely going to be trying this one again with another kind of image at some point soon.

If you’re looking for more no-carve pumpkin ideas, check these out!

17 awesome no-carve, fabric pumpkin ideas…

melted crayon pumpkins…

chalkboard pumpkins,

pom pom pumpkins, 

One-Minute Pumpkin Placecards

Happy fall ya’ll!!

Pin this post for later! And if you make one, leave a comment (or better yet, a photo) on the pin! That helps others know whether they want to try this project, too!