Cat Pumpkin Carving: Super Easy with and without Templates To Print Out

by Kremy PUBLISHED Oct 29, 2023

For some, scary faces on pumpkins are just part of Halloween, others would like to try something different. Animals, including cat faces, are now among the most popular patterns and can sometimes even be carved freehand without any stencils. For the more complicated ones, there are helpful templates to print out. Do you feel like trying a cat pumpkin carving this year?

Generally, it is not difficult to carve a cat’s face. You should only add the characteristic features such as eyes, nose and possibly ears and whiskers. With a few inspirations or templates to print out and the right tools, pumpkin design becomes a piece of cake!

Table of Contents

Cat Pumpkin Carving – Simple Ideas to Imitate
More Ideas and Free Printable Templates

Cat Pumpkin Carving – Simple Ideas to Imitate

simple cat pumpkin carving circles triangles and a rectangle

Let’s start with this particularly easy option: To design the cat’s face, only use geometric shapes such as circles for the eyes, triangles for the ears and whiskers and a triangle for the nose. Or how about this:

Also read: Funny pumpkin faces carving and painting: Cool ideas as an alternative to the creepy pumpkin face

Cut Out Eyes in a Crescent Moon Shape

cat pumpkin carving crescent moon eyes

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While this idea is simple enough to do freehand, just in case, we’ve created a printable template for you to make the task even easier. For the eyes you need two crescent moon shapes with the openings facing each other. With two simple, round holes you get the pupils. Then just cut out the nose and you’re done.

pumpkin cat carving template crescent moon eyes

Cat Pumpkin Carving – How to Add Ears and Whiskers?

cat pumpkin carving using toothpicks to add additional elements

You can either carve the cat ears into the pumpkin as desired or depending on the design (remember to leave enough space above the cat’s face) or you can cut them from felt, cardboard or other material and glue or attach them to the top the pumpkin. You can also make ears from the cut out pumpkin parts and fix them onto the pumpkin using toothpicks. In many cases, however, the face is enough and the cat can be easily recognized even without ears.

The same applies to the whiskers, which you can either carve into the pumpkin or add separately using other materials (e.g. pipe cleaners).

Also read: DIY Paper Mache Halloween Pumpkin: 2 Easy Tutorials to Make with Children

Quick Idea with a Drill for Small Cat Silhouettes

diy halloween decoration cat pumpkin carving

Good tools are essential when carving pumpkins and of course this also applies to cat pumpkin carving. But would you have thought of using a drill to get such cute designs? Not only does it sound easy, but it is!

pumpkin
drilling machine
Flat milling drill (e.g. 0,9inches/25 mm)
carving knife
Spoon
Optionally, acrylic paint and brush

drill holes and then carve cat ears and paint the halloween pumpkin pink

This is how to do cat pumpkin carving:

First, hollow out the Halloween pumpkin by cutting off a lid at the top of the stem and using a spoon to remove the pulp and seeds.
Now drill holes in the pumpkin with the specified attachment. Make sure that they are not too close together, because you will add the ears later.
Use the carving knife to cut the ears into the pumpkin.
Once you have added all the cat motifs, wipe the pumpkin with a dry cloth to remove any residue and dry it.
If you want, you can now paint it any color you like. This is especially helpful if any pumpkin skin chipped off during drilling that you’d like to conceal, but otherwise it’s not necessary. Don’t forget the lid either.

Also read: Preserve Halloween pumpkin: How to prevent the carved pumpkin from getting moldy!