First Pumpkin Carving

Happy Halloween!! Our friends had a BYOP party a.k.a.... Bring Your Own.... Pumpkin! Unfortunately I had a bad upper respiratory infection and we weren't able to go as I barely moved from the couch all weekend... miserable when I had so many things I wanted to do. And that whole feeling awful part too.

I still really wanted us to carve our first pumpkin together so once I started feeling better this week we grabbed one and carved it up! I remember watching my mom carve our pumpkins for halloween as a kid.. once I made her do some complicated scary design I found. She wasn't sure it would end up working but it turned out great. And then we would eat toasted pumpkin seeds YUM!

Here is what we did to carve a wonderful pumpkin. I picked out a design here... they were free and had a lot to choose from. We cut an opening in the bottom of the pumpkin... that's right I said bottom, not top like you might expect. This makes it easier to put in a candle and repeatedly light it/blow it out OR in our case switch on and off the fake tea lights :) With the old method you have to reach your arm into the pumpkin top making it more difficult.  We did this using our big chopping knife since it would take forever with the pumpkin saw. When cutting the opening we cut a notch so we would be able to pull the bottom out easily.

Then you scrape out all of the insides (stringy stuff and seeds) while separating the seeds if you would like to make Toasted Pumpkin Seeds (super easy - post on that coming soon). Now you are ready to carve.

Print out your desired design and tape it onto your pumpkin. We only realized this after but it is much easier to tape it flat if you cut it down... duh! Take a toothpick and make holes in the outline of your design where you would be cutting. The more close together the holes are the easier it will be later to cut... we did them about 1/4 or so apart.

This creates a stencil on your pumpkin when you pull off the paper to use as a guide for cutting. Now cut your design along the holes. You can do a little trimming at the end if necessary.

We bought a little pumpkin carving tool set at walmart for $4 which made the carving and scooping a cinch but you could get away with using a kitchen serated knife and big spoon if necessary.

Meet Pete the Pumpkin! I think he is so cute and a perfect first pumpkin for Eric and I! He looks fan-flippin-tastic on the front porch!

It took like a bazillions shots for this to come out right since the fake tea lights "flicker" just like a regular candle and it was quite dark.

Hopefully next year we can go to the real BYOP party - what a great idea to get friends together! We actually bought 2 pumpkins so we have to decide if we want to carve the other one or just leave it as is. Either way I will definitely be getting those seeds out too :)

Linking to these parties:
(M) Making the World Cuter Mondays, Making Monday Marvelous, Just Something I Whipped Up, The DIY Showoff, Mad Skills, (T) Today's Creative Blog, All Thingz Related, (W) Whatever Goes Wednesday, Spotlight Yourself @ It's So Very Cheri, Creations by Kara, Blue Cricket Design, (Th) Hooking up w/HoH, Somewhat Simple, Get Your Craft On  Thursday, (F) Remodelaholics Anonymous, JAG Show and Share Day, Frugalicious Friday,  FrouFrouDecor, Fingerprints on the Fridge, (S) Weekend Wrap Up Party, Weekend Wander, (Su) Sunday Showcase Party, Sundae Scoop