The following are links to free pumpkin carving templates and photos, clip art, colouring pages, and simple kids’ costume instructions for busy parents, as well as a recipe for yummy chocolate cat cookies.
Free Pumpkin Carving Templates, Instructions, and Photos
Here is a selection of free Halloween pumpkin craft resources, including patterns, photo galleries, and more. All of these sites feature at least one cat pattern.
- Pumpkin creatures: This site features Martha Stewart's craft ideas for cats, alligators, raccoons, snakes, spiders, porcupines, and owls. These sophisticated carving designs, which make use of multiple small pumpkins, are good for older children and adults. Instructions, photos, and carving tips are provided.
- Free pumpkin carving templates: The Disney Family Fun site offers a broad selection of pumpkin carving patterns for kids of all ages, as well as painting and decorating ideas.
- Carved pumpkin photos: This photo gallery features elaborately carved pumpkins that are true works of art. Those who are seeking a serious carving challenge will find some great ideas here.
- Free pumpkin carving stencils and patterns: This Halloween site offers simple yet elegant pumpkin designs.
- Free printable pumpkin stencil collection: Here you'll find 38 free carving patterns from Better Homes and Gardens (requires signing up for a free membership).
- Traditional and modern pumpkin templates: The Pumpkin Wizard site includes Halloween classics, as well as modern offerings based on various cartoons, movie monsters, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, musicians, Thanksgiving themes, and more.
- Wildlife stencils: Not your typical Halloween designs, these attractive animal stencils from the World Wildlife Federation include tigers, dolphins, giraffes, butterflies, turtles, pandas, and more.
- History stencils: History.com offers various free pumpkin stencils including a few Halloween classics and a number of unusual items such as historical figures, the American flag, the Statue of Liberty, and Thanksgiving scenes.
- Un-Halloween carving patterns: Here you'll find free stencils based on non-Halloween themes, including fantasy/medieval, famous people, Christian symbols, American patriotic symbols, animals, and more.
Free Halloween Clip-Art
The following sites offer a broad array of great Halloween clip art, including plenty of feisty Halloween kitties.
- FreeDigitalPhotos.net Halloween images: This site hosts many pages of high-quality free images featuring Halloween scenes, pumpkins, witches, bats, haunted houses, skulls, and more.
- Free Halloween fonts: This font site offers everything from ghosts to bones to jack-o-lanterns and more.
- Kaboose clip art collection: This enormous collection includes a variety of smaller collections of classic Halloween favourites, as well as additional Halloween resources such as backgrounds, crafts, games, and printables.
- Christmas Graphics Plus Halloween clip art: This site offers graphics for kids and adults, as well as animated Halloween GIFs.
- Rats2U clip art collection: This collection includes a broad array of images ranging from spooky cats and pumpkins to haunted houses, spiders, and skeletons, as well as an enormous range of Halloween fonts, recipes, costume ideas, and more.
- Martha Stewart Halloween clip art and crafts: This site features Martha Stewart's clip art and crafts, including Halloween table lanterns (cat and moon templates) and other decorations, invitations, cards, and more.
- Cartoon Cottage free Halloween signs: Cartoon Cottage offers a nice little collection of Halloween signs such as “Haunted Website,” “Happy Halloween,” and “Beware,” complete with Halloween cats, as well as a series of animated GIFs.
- Eternal Nights animated Halloween graphics and wallpaper: Here you'll find a very cool collection of high-quality Halloween images, including plenty of skeletons.
- Designed to a T simple Halloween icons: This site offers a funny little collection of simple designs including pumpkins, bats, ghosts, spiders, and more.
- Jan's Courtyard animated graphics collection: This site is home to a wide variety of animated Halloween graphics, including haunted houses, lightning, graveyards, and creatures.
- The Youth Online Club's kid-friendly graphics: Less scary (and thus suitable for smaller children), this site includes lots of cute monsters, adorable kitties, friendly ghosts, and more.
- The SkullBlossom collection: This atypical gallery offers attractive, unique clip art of witches, Halloween cats, and other Halloween graphics.
Free Halloween Colouring Pages and Other Printables
Visit Woo! Jr. for a series of free, printable Halloween cat colouring pages. The site also offers printable masks, kids’ Halloween costume ideas, scavenger hunt lists and word puzzles, Halloween games, and unusual ideas for pumpkin carving and decorating (with free pumpkin stencils).
Free Kids’ Halloween Costume Ideas and Instructions
The Fleece Farm provides directions to make quick, easy, inexpensive animal costumes for kids, including cat, puppy, bunny, sheep, turtle, cow, tiger, ladybug, and butterfly.
Halloween Recipe – Cat Cookies on Sticks
Kids love these yummy chocolate cat face cookies. The following quick and easy recipe makes 24:
Cookie Ingredients
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup baking cocoa (unsweetened cocoa powder)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Decorations
- 24 Popsicle sticks or wooden craft sticks
- 48 Candy Corn candies
- 24 Red Hot candies
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Cream sugar and butter together and then beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine all dry ingredients and mix them into the creamed mixture.
Roll the dough into balls about 1.5 inches in diameter, set them several inches apart on greased cookie sheets, and insert a stick (lollipop style) into each. Next, dip a glass in sugar and use it to flatten each of the cookies. Then pinch the tops of the cookies to create ears and press a fork into each “cheek” to create whiskers. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
As soon as cookies are removed from the oven, press a Red Hot candy into the center of each cat face to create a nose, and two Candy Corns for eyes. Then remove the cookies to wire racks to cool.
To create an attractive Halloween display, place cat cookies upright on their sticks in some sort of spooky Halloween container, such as a small witch’s cauldron.
For more Halloween stuff, see Easy, Inexpensive Halloween Costumes and Traditional Halloween Party Activities.
For Halloween history, see Halloween and the Black Cat.
Jennifer Copley - Jennifer Copley, BFA, BEd, has a diverse base of expertise that includes research, writing, education, pet care, and various other ...
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