Punkins!

Friday night my friend Craig and I decided we wanted to carve pumpkins. So after some shopping for an outfit worthy of someone officiating a wedding (him, not me) and some dinner we picked out some pumpkins, which took forever. We also got some Halloween candy just in case there were some very early trick or treaters. Oh we also got this movie called Monster House which is awesome. It's animated and for children but very clever.

Anyways, we picked out pumpkins and went over to his place to get to work. We had also picked up one of those kits full of tools. I always thought they were sort of a marketing gimmick but they're so much easier to work with than knives. The set also comes with a book of designs for those who are not very creative. Craig is one of those not very creative people so while I free hand drew and and planned out my work of art Craig resorted to using someone else's design. It was called Boo-gie Nights though so he can be forgiven.

We both wanted white pumpkins but we also wanted an orange one. All the orange pumpkins were gigantic though so we bought one of these hideous painted ones. They all had paint chipping off them so we figured it'd be fairly easy to scrape the rest of the face off and use this one.


Pretty much right off the bat I failed at pumpkin carving. My stem fell off.


Since it was now significantly more difficult to get the top out I requested the use of Craig's muscles. He used two steak knives to get it out and while he nearly stabbed himself in the chest I took photos.


I'm pretty sure it's against Halloween rules to have a stemless pumpkin so I found some old glue from some project Craig had done and decided to glue the stem back on. The glue was seperated and weird but I stirred it with a butter knife and it was all good.


All hollowed out!


This was my pumpkin carving plan...


This was Craig's pumpkin carving plan.


I decided I drew him a little too fat the first time so I drew him taller on the pumpkin.


I've done this cat on a pumpkin before but for some reason I always forget how difficult it is to carve out these tiny thin lines.


Almost done...


Yay! Kitten pumpkin!


This is Craig's pumpkin. We watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre followed by Monster House while pumpkin carving. He was finished about halfway through TCM. My pumpkin took about five hours. Yes, seriously.


Here are our pumpkins chillin' out together.


Craig roasted the seeds while I finished my pumpkin. I accidentally told him you put pepper on them then corrected myself and told him to use salt. He ended up using both and they were the best pumpkin seeds ever. I could have eaten the whole pan.


Some of you know I used to nanny. I did pumpkin carving with the girls last year while visiting them one night. Mine was the rainbow one. I was pretty in love with how adorable and girly these hippie pumpkins were.


The year before the younger of the girls drew her face on her pumpkin and I cut it out for her. I did the cat pumpkin (obviously).