We carved them on Saturday with my parents. Paul carved the awesome skull on the left, I painted the face on the right (it fell yesterday and got a little messy) and carved the heart. My Mom and Dad helped Will with the “light bright” pumpkin — Dad held the pegs while Will beat them into the pumpkin (along with PapPap’s fingers).
Will’s glowing face, above.
Paul’s awesome skull. We didn’t really have the right tools for this type of carving, but took out some of my craft knives instead. It took awhile. Paul was not interested in doing another pumpkin once this was done.
Initially, I was going to stick with painting the face and putting it on this pumpkin to make a pumpkin snow-man. Little known fact: I am very allergic to the innards of pumpkins and squash… if I dig out the insides with bare hands, they swell up and I break out in horrible hives that take weeks to fully heal. Really, it’s true! So I don’t dig out pumpkins. I did, however, want to try the scraping technique (I wanted to do a more involved pattern but we didn’t get a chance to do another pumpkin). The heart above was my playing around with the technique, which was fun! It’s tricky to get deep enough for the light to show through and not break through the shell. (Paul did a fantastic job!)
Anonymous | 01-Nov-07 at 10:44 am | Permalink
Holly-I experimented with the etched/scraped pumpkin look this year too (I saw it in Martha Stewart). Martha suggested linoleum tools, but since we didn’t have any of those (who does?) I used a serrated knive and a fork. Needless to say mine was not as good as Martha’s (or yours/Paul’s). I went for a spiderweb. We’ll try it again next year for sure…maybe practice will make perfect!
The kids look adorable!
Take care,
Elena