Halloween Pumpkin

I'm sure there's a witty something or other that I could say about the sheer volume of this year's Halloween pumpkin of ours, it was absolutely mahooosive. Such girth! Such ripe, splendid, orange abundance! A right whopper! It was a gift to me from J, a surprise purchase from our lovely local farm shop - funny how he went to buy sausages and staggered back with this beauty, it did make me smile.

It's become something of a tradition for me to work my artistic skillz on the annual Halloween pumpkin (you might remember last year's offering?). I'm afraid I am completely selfish when it comes to this event and the poor Little People don't get much of a look in. As I do feel mildly guilty about my selfishness,  this year I made the effort to encourage Little B to join in and help me. He enjoyed hovering about watching the process, but was surprisingly disgusted with the whole carving process.

He really couldn't get to grips with the pumpkin innards, he just screwed up his face and refused to engage. So I rolled up my sleeves and got down to the business of scraping out all by myself.

Oooo isn't this such a glorious colour? I love orange, so cheerful and optimistic.

Last week I spent rather a lot of time surfing the net searching for a great pumpkin carving design - there is a lot of inspiration out there if you are into this sort of thing. I looked at ghosts and ghouls, witches and bats, haunted houses and all manner of scary faces. In the end I settled for a cat's face, The Cheshire Cat to be more precise (lots of images here, if you feel a burning need to check it out).

I made a freehand drawing of the cat's face on a large piece of paper first, making sure it was the right size to fill my ginormous pumpkin. My method is then to place the paper on the surface of the pumpkin and draw over the lines very firmly with a ball point pen. This makes a faint but visible score-line on the surface of the pumpkin which you can then go over with the pen afterwards before beginning to cut.

I do my carving with a small, pointed, serrated kitchen knife and lots of patience. It's a slow process, but I really love doing stuff like this, kind of a childish pleasure in seeing a series of shapes and holes suddenly come together to form the design. A little bit of creative magic.

There is a wonderful kind of fidgety anticipation once the carving has been done, waiting for the daylight to fade and Lighting-Up-Time to arrive. I filled these hours helping the Little People with costumes and make-up ready for the evening's sweet-gathering mission.

I put six tea lights into my pumpkin lantern, and at 5 o'clock it was finally dark enough to light up............

Ooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Spoooooooooooooooooooky!!!!!!!!!!!

The lit up design is so much better than the unlit version, I was rather stupidly proud of my efforts. I may have squealed a teensy bit. My Little People were suitably impressed, as were the many, many neighbourhood Little People who called by to Trick-or-Treat at our house. It should really be called Treat-or-Treat, we gave away a whole huge 750g tub of Cadburys Celebration chocolates to the steady stream of witches, zombies, warewolves, bats, cats, vampires and ghosts.

It was a fun evening, there was a great spirit on our streets with so many families making the effort to dress up their houses and their children. We partied with our neighbours (five family's with nine children in total), eating, drinking and making merry whilst trying to ration the sugar intake for our offspring after their treat-or-treating jaunt round the neighbouring streets.

Fun times xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

Comments

[Wiiks]

Wow, that is so cool!

[Gillian]

It's brilliant! They are transformed when lit, they really are. It's nice that you and your neighbours get together at Halloween. Our street was quiet as a mouse. x

[Irene]

Very Cool!

[Two Crafty Brownies]

Gorgeous design, Lucy! What a good idea to score the design onto the pumpkin! Definitely one for us to try next year. Jenny and Lucy xxx

[Robin Summers]

Awesome pumpkin! I love the job you did on it. I agree they look so much better when the sun goes down and you see the carving in the dark of night!

Great job!!

Robin

[Clare]

Fab u lous sounds like lots of fun
Clare x

[Judith Pearson]

That's fantastic !

[Melody A]

Wow, you are unbelievably artistic, such detail on a big scale and it looks fabulous lighted!!

[Estella]

So talented Lucy. Our Halloween day was a disaster for us. It rained and rained and had water pooling everywhere. So no trick o treaters this year. Glad you had a great one. I had a pumpkin left over that was not carved so if it holds out, I think I'll try to carve out a turkey for Thanksgiving Day. ; )

[Ingrid]

Wow what an amazing pumkin. In holland we don't have the tradition of Halloween.

[michelle]

that's a great pumpkin, I love Halloween and we did the pumpkins and decorated the whole house, such fun!x

[Charlotte]

Beautiful job of carving!

[Caitlin]

Wow! That's a pumpkin and a half!

[Carolyn Jackson]

Lovely work as usual Lucy, you are so artistic. I have been trying to find the blog of your art work and exhibition in Cornwall but cant seem to find it. The lovely fabric art scenes you did. They were so clever. Carolyn.

[Faye Faraldo]

I don't celebrate the day since I retired and live alone. Not any little people though so all is well. My grands still love Halloween so the tradition passes on. I sat and hooked which is what I love to do. Your pumpkin looks wonderful as everything you touch does indeed turn to gold and then you leave us the tutorial. Thank you so much and stay healthy.

[CJ]

Wow Lucy, it's FAB! There is clearly no end to your artistic talents. Glad you had such an excellent Hallowe'en. CJ xx

[Danielle]

Pretty pumpkin! You turn everything you touch into gold...

[Teresa Kasner]

Wow! I'm totally impressed with your carving! That's amazing! I love how your neighborhood gets into Halloween.. it's such a fun time. ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

[Valerie Donlon]

Lovely carving :) My 17 year old daughter does the honours here now, she loves it. I got in loads of goodies for trick or treaters, but we only had 2. I must have eaten my body weight in left vr chocolate :(

[Claire]

Brilliant! Quite right to keep the carving fun all to yourself!

[karen]

Another masterpiece :-)

[Rae]

That's a great pumpkin Lucy.

Carla, Halloween wasn't really a UK thing here either ...it's taken off big time since the supermarkets started selling all sorts of like minded goods mostly from china.

As a child I was nearly always staying with my Grandparents on Halloween and always a mystery knock on the front door with no one there when we opened it but a box, It contained Sweets,dot to dot book, comic and two bottles, a Guinness and Brown ale for my Grandparents. Many years later I discovered that my Dad was the mystery door knocking spooky ghost!

[Joy]

Brilliant carving Lucy. I bought a pumpkin and sat it in the window but didn't get around to carving it. We had eighteen little visitors and handed out sweet treats to them. Happy Halloween xx lots of love Joy xx

[I Was Swallowed by a Hippo]

Very fabulous! I feel guilty every year as I carve a nice, soft pumpkin, remembering my poor dad carving out rock hard turnips. And there were 3 of us.
X

[Kimmy]

Lucy, you have outdone yourself once again. FABULOUS carving! Sounds like a wonderful time. Now I feel guilty. Denny and I went to the movies on Halloween night. Fortunately, there was no egg on the front door when we returned.