Pumpkin Oranges with Cloves for Halloween

Did you ever make an orange studded with cloves for Christmas when you were little? Here’s a way to make them for Halloween too.

These Pumpkin Oranges are a super quick and easy festive decoration for your Halloween table.

They smell amazing and are a super cute idea to make with the kids.

Growing up, we always used to put cloves in oranges around Christmas time. Sometimes they’re called pomanders. But we just knew it smelled amazing!

My boys love to carve pumpkins. But if we cut them too early, they are full of mold and have to be thrown away.

To ensure that our pumpkin carving doesn’t go to waster, I have the boys make Halloween Oranges.

With just some oranges and whole cloves, they get to do a hands-on craft that also makes cute decorations to set around the house.

And since Halloween is my least-favorite holiday, I hate to spend money on decorations. And the best part about these oranges studded with cloves is that you don’t have to store them!!!!!

Supplies

Scroll down for a printable “how-to” card with directions for this project.

• Oranges
• Whole Cloves

Navel or Cara Cara oranges are a great option for this craft. They are a pretty orange and a nice size for making a pumpkin face.

You could also do this with tangerines, but it might be hard to make detailed faces with the cloves.

How to Make Pumpkin Face Oranges

Design

You can use a pen to mark out your design if you want to make sure that it will fit. Or if you’re up for it, just freeform the design.

Prepare the oranges

Stick individual whole cloves into the oranges to create fun pumpkin faces or other Halloween designs.

To make this easier, you can use the pointy end of a wooden skewer to create a hole to insert the clove into.

Add the cloves

This is absolutely a craft that kids can do. From time to time, they may need help getting the clove into the orange.

They can make pumpkin-esque faces on the oranges or any other type of design.

Also, you will break some of the top parts of the cloves. As you can see from the image above, some of the cloves have a small bulb at the top while others just look like prongs.

That is perfectly fine.

Know you will have some clean up to do when this is done. The oranges don’t get juicy or anything, but you will have clove dust all over your table.

And it smells amazing!

Put on this cool Halloween playlist and get to work!

I love that these orange and clove pumpkins are a non-scary Halloween decoration and activity in one.

The first time we made these, my kids were 5 and 6 years old. They enjoyed making them but turns out they enjoyed taking them apart also.

The oranges lasted 5 minutes before there were whole cloves all over the house.

But sometimes you just really want them to not be on screens and being creative for a few minutes. Even if what they make isn’t heirloom-worthy.

If you need more instruction, you can check out this post that Martha Stewart put together on How to Make Pomanders. It has tips on how to make them last longer. And another tutorial on Eighteen25.

Not only are these a cute and cheap Halloween decoration for your home, but you could send these cute pumpkin faces with oranges and cloves to school for the teacher on Halloween!

Check out 17 Easy Halloween Party Ideas with some recipes, decorations and more!

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