Jack-o’-Lantern Face Stencils
Twenty-four classic jack-o’-lantern faces, free to download and print. Every one is a clean black-and-white carving stencil — black is the part you cut away, white is the pumpkin that stays — and every one comes as a printable PDF in three pumpkin sizes, plus an SVG for Cricut and Silhouette and a PNG.
None of these will fall apart on you. Every design has been checked so that no piece of pumpkin is left floating with nothing holding it up, and so that the thinnest strip of pumpkin between two cuts is still wide enough to take the pressure of a saw. That sounds obvious, but it is the single most common reason a downloaded stencil ends with a chunk of face dropping into the candle.
Print these at full size — it matters more than you think
Print at 100% (Actual Size). In your print dialog, turn off “Fit to page” or “Shrink to fit”. Every sheet has a ruler bar on it that must measure exactly 4 inches / 10 cm — check that before you tape anything to a pumpkin. If the bar is short, your printer scaled the page and the stencil will not fit the way you expect.
Each PDF contains the same face three times, at three different sizes, so you print the one page that suits the pumpkin in front of you:
- SmallUp to 4 in wide — for a pumpkin around 8 in / 20 cm tall
- MediumUp to 5.6 in wide — a standard carving pumpkin, 10 in / 25 cm
- LargeUp to 6.9 in wide — a big pumpkin, 12 in / 30 cm or more
The exact measurement for that particular face is printed in the top right corner of every sheet, so you can hold a tape measure against your pumpkin before you commit.
Classic jack-o’-lantern faces
The faces everyone pictures when they think of a carved pumpkin — triangle eyes, a triangle nose, and a wide toothy grin. Start here if this is your first pumpkin of the year, or if a child is doing the carving with you.
Classic grin
Quick
Happy jack
Quick
Classic pumpkin smile
Quick
Blocky classic
Quick
Big toothy smile
Quick
Goofy grin
Quick
Happy squint
Quick
Playful smile
Quick
Surprised face
Quick
Winking face
Steady
Fun and friendly faces
Same easy cuts, more personality. These read well from across a garden and they photograph beautifully once the candle is in, because the shapes are big and the light has room to spill out.
Laughing smile
Quick
Heart eyes
Quick
Jolly jack
Steady
Monster smile
Quick
Stitched smile
Quick
Ghost smiley
Quick
Mischievous and spooky faces
Angled eyes and jagged mouths, for a pumpkin with an attitude. The last three are the most detailed in the set — still perfectly carvable, but give yourself a little more time and a smaller blade.
Mischievous grin
Quick
Devilish grin
Quick
Wicked smile
Quick
Evil grin
Quick
Angry grin
Quick
Worried specter
Detailed
Melting scream
Steady
Angry monster
Detailed
How to carve one of these
- Pick your size and print at 100%. Check the ruler bar on the sheet measures 4 in / 10 cm before you go further.
- Cut a lid — from the bottom, not the top. Cutting a hole in the base lets you sit the pumpkin down over a candle, keeps the stem intact, and stops the lid caving in as it dries.
- Scrape the inside wall thin. Take the wall behind the face down to about 2.5 cm / 1 in. Thinner walls cut more easily and glow far more brightly.
- Tape the paper on. Snip little slits around the edge of the sheet so the flat paper can curve around the round pumpkin, then tape it down firmly all the way round.
- Transfer the design. Poke holes along every black outline with a pin, a needle tool or a nail, roughly 3 mm apart. Lift the paper off and you have a dotted map of the face.
- Cut the smallest shapes first. Work from the middle of the face outward. Small saws beat big knives — a cheap pumpkin-carving saw follows a curve far better than a kitchen blade.
- Leave every piece in place until you have finished cutting. The offcuts support the pumpkin while you work. Push them all out from behind at the end.
- Light it. A battery tea light is safest and will not scorch the lid; a real candle gives that flicker. If you are using a flame, cut a small vent near the top.
Questions people ask
Which file should I download?
The PDF if you are printing and carving — it is already laid out at true size with the scale check. The SVG if you are cutting the design on a Cricut or Silhouette, or scaling it in design software. The PNG if you just want a picture of the face to drop into something else.
Why does my printed stencil come out too small?
Almost always “Fit to page” being left on. Turn it off, choose 100% or Actual Size, and reprint. The ruler bar on the sheet is there so you can catch this in two seconds rather than halfway through carving.
Can I print these on A4?
Yes. The sheets are built on US Letter but all the content sits inside the narrower A4 width, so an A4 printer will print them at 100% with nothing cut off.
Which of these is easiest for a child?
Anything marked Quick in the grid above — those are four simple cuts with no fine detail. Classic grin, Happy jack and Blocky classic are about as forgiving as a pumpkin face gets. An adult should still do the cutting; children are great at the pin-poking step.
Will part of the face fall out?
Not on these. A stencil fails when a piece of white is completely surrounded by black, because that piece has nothing connecting it to the rest of the pumpkin. Every design here was checked automatically for that, and for strips of pumpkin too thin to survive the saw. If you edit one of the SVGs yourself, that is the thing to watch for.
Can I use these for something I sell?
They are free for personal use — carve them, print them, use them with your class or your kids. Please do not resell the files themselves or bundle them into a paid stencil pack.
More free templates and tools
- Easy pumpkin carving stencils — 20 more designs beyond faces: cats, bats, spiders, ghosts, witches and the graveyard.
- Photo to stencil — turn a photograph into a carvable black-and-white stencil of your own.
- Silhouette maker — make a clean silhouette from any picture.
- Halloween monogram maker — build a lettered design for a pumpkin, a door or a sign.
