So, this year, in the spirit of Halloween, I decided to give trick or treaters candy and Halloween pretzels. I had more pretzels than candy, so suffice to say, I ran out of candy first. I guess pretzels, while healthier, just aren’t as popular. I got some blank stares from the trick or treaters…. Haha. Hey, beats people giving out cans of heavy soda and apples! I remember getting those when I was a kid. It was always one house. Well, hopefully, my housemates and I won’t be known as the pretzel people…. but the pretzels were Halloween themed! Bats and pumpkin shaped!
But I digress… what is DIY about today’s post? A foray into pumpkin carving! Albeit….late. A friend gifted me a pumpkin, and I let it sit outside as decoration, but never got a chance to carve it until today! So.. here we go.
This is what I was shooting for. A friend kindly found something for me to try imitating.
Looks cute, right? Somehow, I’m supposed to imitate this.
For a first time carver, I think I did pretty well. I didn’t have any special tools, just mostly random knives and spoons in my kitchen stock.
First step after rinsing the pumpkin off. Cut the top off.
Next, get all the seeds and stringy stuff out.
The stringy stuff just wasn’t coming all out, and I tried using a tool to descale a fish…not really sure it helped so much. I tried using a big spoon too… Do you have suggestions on best tool to use for this?
I drew a rough design of the minion on the pumpkin, and then started with found a smaller knife to cut the eyeball.
Eyeballs and hair….done!
Done! You can see my lines. Clearly, I had issues following them. Haha.Â
The part with the mouth was terrible. My knife wasn’t small enough, so I ended up with the minion looking like it got punched in the teeth! The hardest part was actually the section surrounding the mouth. The cut wasn’t supposed to go all the way through, but deep enough for light to go through. So… I cut the outline and then used the small knife to pick out some pieces slowly cutting randomly to get small chunks out. Using a small spoon helped to scoop the pumpkin meat out. The knife kept slicing it, but not taking the meat out of the hole. And… because a tea light didn’t work, I just shoved a bright flashlight in it. Otherwise… I’d probably break the meat and the whole mouth…
And voila! Glowing in the dark! Came out better than I thought!
I didn’t know clear stamps existed. Clear stamps are basically peelable, and are used by putting them on an acrylic block. You apply the pressure to the acrylic block in order to get the ink on the ink pad onto the stamp. Then, after you’re done using the stamp, you peel the stamp off. I guess this saves making a wooden block for the old wooden block/rubber stamps. I’m not sure how I feel about them yet. So far, the clear stamp takes off ink pretty quickly, and I can’t stamp more than once. With the wooden block stamps, I can stamp multiple times before the ink runs out…so maybe the clear stamp material doesn’t absorb as much ink…or just dumps it all in the first go.
Improv Artz 