Pumpkin Carving Ideas

“Halloween” may be the first thing which comes to your mind when you think about pumpkin carvings. A horror inspiring carved pumpkin is one of the most popular icons of Halloween day. Halloween is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31, which has its roots in the Christian holyday of All Saints. The staple of Halloween, the pumpkin excites both children and adults alike. There are even many competitions which are organized at the time of Halloween and the best carved pumpkins are given prizes. People carve pumpkins with different kind of patterns for the Halloween day. Although readymade carved pumpkins are available aplenty, it is always better to go for homemade one. Carving a pumpkin for Halloween gives you a chance to spend quality family time together and even enhance your creativity. You need a printed pattern for making designs on pumpkin. You can explore your creativity by drawing your own pattern for pumpkin carvings also. Read on the article to know more pumpkin carving ideas.

Interesting Pumpkin Carving Ideas

There are umpteen number of patterns in which you can carve the pumpkin and have fun. Some of the popular pumpkin carving patterns are:

Alien Pattern
Bat Pattern
Pumpkin carving
Blue's Clues Pattern
Banshee Pattern
Cat Pattern
Boo Pattern
Owl Head Pattern
Pirate Pattern
R.I.P. Pattern
Spider Pattern
Skull Pattern
Spider Web Pattern
Scooby Doo Pattern
Sponge Bob Pattern
Cat Pattern
Count Pattern
Ghost Pattern
Happy Halloween Pattern
Haunted House Pattern
Jack Pattern

Essential Materials:

Pumpkin
Small nail or pumpkin poker
Printer and paper
Spoon or pumpkin scoop
Serrated knife or pumpkin saw

How To Carve

Start with cutting a hole in the top of the pumpkin in order to create the lid.
Your saw should position inwards. It helps your lid sits firmly on the top of the pumpkin.
The seeds and strings of the selected pumpkin should be removed using a spoon.
You can scrape some pulp from pumpkin, which would keep the pumpkin about an inch thick on the areas where you carved inside.
You can estimate the thickness of the pumpkin by poking a straight pin or used needle through it.
Print out the pattern you want. There are usually two kinds of pattern. For one style of pattern, the design (the printed one) from the pumpkin is carved from frontage. In the second kind, left over pumpkin are used to represent the pattern and only portion is to be cut out is the background to make the character [prime design] look backlit.
You can trim off the excess paper which usually comes as a result of pattern printing and use tapes or pins to attach the pattern to the chosen pumpkin.
Try smoothing the pattern onto the chosen pumpkin and fix it with masking tape and let it dry properly.
It is better to make small cuts in the paper where it clumps. Thus, it lies flat and you can add pins to hold.
You should poke hole through the printed pattern after this, with a nail or a pumpkin poker. It will be good if you make the holes 1/8 inches apart.
Now you can remove the paper from the pumpkin.
After you have removed the paper, you need to rub flour or chalk over all areas where you made the holes for a nice vision.
Push a nail through the pumpkin skin where you would like to start carving. You may have to use some force to make its way through the pumpkin. Repeat the same process where you want to carve a design also.
By taking the nail hole as a beginning point, you can cut the design with your knife or saw. Give slight pressure when cutting out your design. You can remove pieces by pushing them out from inside.
Once your pumpkin is ready with the design, you can fix the pumpkin light or candle in a holder which is designed for pumpkins to light it up.
Turn on the bulb or light the candle (if you are using the candle, you can put a tinfoil inside the pumpkin for safety reason). You can put the lid on the pumpkin at this stage.
Wait for some time and remove the lid. You will be able to see a smoke mark on it.
Make a vent in the lid where the smoke mark shows.

How to Cite

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