If you decorate pumpkins without piercing their skin, you can enjoy them for a month or more rather than the four or five days that is typical before a carved pumpkin turns to mush.

Decorating also is not as messy, and it's generally easier and safer for children.

With those thoughts in mind, Tracy Jo Mulliken of the University of Illinois/Rock Island County Extension Service taught a class earlier this month called "pumpkin bling."

Following are directions for how she made the pumpkins pictured at right.

Glittery pumpkin: By using glitter and ribbons, pumpkins can be transformed into tastefully razzle-dazzle decorations. "The swirls make it pretty," Mulliken says.

These decorations are made by "painting" the pumpkin with white glue, then affixing glitter and decorative pieces such as sequins, fake gems or beads. You can draw your designs freehand, or use a stencil or cookie-cutter as your pattern, she suggests.

Scaredy-cat: The cat is made using a mini-pumpkin, black pipe cleaners, construction paper and plastic eyes.

To make the ears, shape the pipe cleaner, put glue on it, press it against the construction paper and cut out the ear triangles. This is far easier, especially for young children, than cutting the triangles first and trying to glue them onto the pipe cleaner, Mulliken says.

Spider: The spider is simply a mini-pumpkin spray-painted black, with plastic eyes that have been glued on and chenille pipe cleaners that have been shaped and glued underneath for legs. (Chenille pipe cleaners are those that have thick and thin parts. And, yes, a real spider would have eight legs, but Mulliken ran out of pipe cleaners for her class.)

Other ideas:

-- Paint an orange pumpkin white and glue on eyes for an instant "ghost."

-- Create candy corn designs on your pumpkin by using masking or painter's tape to "draw" the kernel shape, then fill in the top with yellow paint and the bottom with white, leaving the orange in the middle.

-- Make a witch with a black hat (construction paper rolled and glued into a cone shape) and affixing green yarn for hair.

-- Spell out your name using glitter on mini-pumpkins, one letter per pumpkin, arranged in a row.

Final tip: Be sure to wash and dry your pumpkins first to create a clean work surface.