Halloween Pumpkin Carvings 2012

Home » CREATE » Crafts » Pumpkin Crafts » Halloween Pumpkin Carvings 2012

Please Share This Post!

For day 31 of Crafty October I shared my pumpkin carvings for this year, I’ll let you know, in this post, how I carve my pumpkins!

Cheshire Cat & The Mad Hatter | Pumpkin Carvings 2012 | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

I love carving pumpkins for Halloween – it’s probably my favourite activity! I *only* carved two pumpkins this year – I normally do at least 6! Both turned out fabulous, and I really like the designs I picked out this year.

Over the years I’ve collected many templates – freebies online, as well as ones that I have paid for. These two particular patterns are paid for ones, that I bought from Zombie Pumpkins.

I find carving pumpkins really satisfying and fun – nothing more cool than seeing the pattern come to life as you cut each section out. The boring, hard bit though, is the hollowing out!

I cut a lid from the top in a pentagon, with a notch at the back so I can fit it back on in the right place. I scrape to about an inch or just less thickness. I don’t bother doing this the whole way around – too much like hard work! I tend to do the front where I know I’m going to be carving.

Cheshire Cat & The Mad Hatter | Pumpkin Carvings 2012 | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

I have my tools of the trade from Pumpkin Masters. I bought my kit about 15 years ago – and it still helps me to carve out pumpkins! I bought replacement parts the last time I was out in the USA, as I can’t seem to find these in the UK any more – even though I bought the original kit from my local supermarket.

Next step is the fun bit – the carving out!

I always tape my stencil to the front of the pumpkin, folding the paper so that it bends round and trying to keep the parts in the correct (ish) place. I then pierce through the outline of each section with a little pokey-pokey tool to make holes in the pumpkin. I then remove the template and start carving. I do it this way as that’s how I learned to do it when I got a carving instruction booklet with my kit. I like doing it this way as I can see clearly what I am cutting and if I’m getting too close to another edge. If I cut through the paper (which I have done as well) I find that I am carving blindly, and even though it’s a quicker technique, it’s easy to ruin your work (in my experience anyway!)

Cheshire Cat & The Mad Hatter | Pumpkin Carvings 2012 | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

Cheshire Cat & The Mad Hatter | Pumpkin Carvings 2012 | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

After carefully cutting the pieces out and cleaning the pumpkin up from bits of paper, it’s time to pop in a tea-light (or two, or three) and put outside for Halloween!

Cheshire Cat & The Mad Hatter | Pumpkin Carvings 2012 | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

Cheshire Cat & The Mad Hatter | Pumpkin Carvings 2012 | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

Cheshire Cat & The Mad Hatter | Pumpkin Carvings 2012 | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

Cheshire Cat & The Mad Hatter | Pumpkin Carvings 2012 | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

Cheshire Cat & The Mad Hatter | Pumpkin Carvings 2012 | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

I have created my own templates in the past as well – it’s a bit of work, and I used a tutorial online how to do it, and my proudest one was this of Eddie (Iron Maiden) that I carved last year!

Eddie Iron Maiden | Pumpkin Carving | The Purple Pumpkin Blog

Please Share This Post!