[crafts] Skull Jack o'lantern

Last year I carved my pumpkin way too early and it was all shriveled up before Halloween. This year, I waited until the week of Halloween. 

The stencil I used is here. I printed it out and taped it to my pumpkin. I opened up one end of a paperclip and poked holes along the pattern, to outline where I would need to cut. Then I used my pumpkin carving tool cut. I accidentally broke off a bit of the skull's jaw on the right, so I had to hold it back in place with a toothpick.

I used a round, tin biscuit cutter (like a donut cutter without the center ring) to clean out the inside of the pumpkin. It was nice and sharp for scraping away all the seeds and gunk on the inside walls. I've used spoons in the past but this biscuit cutter was 100x better.

At night, all lit up:

This was quick- less than an hour to clean and cut. Next year, maybe I'll do two. Or get Dollar to make one as well.

[misc] Jack old Lantern

Wow. After one week, my Jack o' Lantern has aged from a terrifying, nightmare-inducing demonic face to:

What the actual F? Now it just looks like some toothless old man who, at worst, will try to gum you to death. I can hear a wheezy, high pitched laughing in my head followed by a chronic cough. So not scary anymore- apart from the gross flies and hornets hanging around on it.

I'm going to have to pitch it over the bank this weekend. I guess I shouldn't be surprised- I literally placed large piece of cut vegetable on my deck and got mad when it rotted in a week's time. I've read a few things online to help preserve the pumpkin- spritzing the finished piece inside and out with a bleach/water mix and then slathering all the cut surfaces with petroleum jelly to seal/protect but... ugh, it sounds like so much extra work. 

[misc] Jack o' Lantern

Spent Friday evening on the deck, whittling a pumpkin. Blades were slashing, bits of pumpkin went flying (a la Edward Scissorhands). I ended up with:

Uh, that's pretty scary. I have Dollar go out at night to blow out the candle when we go to bed because it's too creepy for me. I hope it lasts until the end of the month.

[misc] Pumpkin

I forced my house-guest to carve me a pumpkin while he was here:

Looks nice! 

After about a week, the face is starting to dry and cave in on itself. But I do like having a pumpkin to light at night:

SpOOoooOOOooooOOOooky.