[mesmark]

Here are three pumpkins I carved last night. I'm planning on carving 10-12 but need to space it out a bit, building up to a big carving party this Saturday.









They turned out pretty good but I rushed the headless horseman a bit and could have done better with Lightning McQueen. Oh well, I still have 10 more to work out the carving kinks.

Does anyone else carve?

[simplyesl]

Hey Mark,

Your carvings aren't showing up for me.

Halloween isn't the biggest thing in Australia, i've never celebrated it let alone carved any pumpkins.

[clivehawkins]

I've never carved but was planning to with the kids classes. (Obviously not to your standard). How do you actually go about it ie preparing the pumpkin before actually doing any carving?

[mesmark]

It's pretty much - cut it open and scoop it out. However, there are some details.

1. When you cut off the top you want to angle the knife. If you cut straight up and down, the top will fall into the pumpkin when you go to put it on. Also, it's better to make several stabs so the top looks like a hexagon instead of trying to cut the top.

2. don't break off the stem.

3. When you scoop the insides out make sure you remove all of the strings and soft meat. The strings and soft meat rot very quickly. If you remove them all, then the pumpkin will last longer. So it's best to scrape the walls a little.

And that's it!

[Eric]

Cool, cool cool! How many have you done so far?

[mesmark]

Thanks!

I have done 6 so far. I have 2 more to do tonight. One tomorrow and then, I have the 2 80lb pumpkins for the finale on Saturday. 11 is the goal plus a couple little ones to do with my kids at my carving party.

[mesmark]

Whether you want more or not...

I carved my two big pumpkins tonight. One was over 80 lbs. and the other was close to 75.









So that's it for this year, but I have a carving party tomorrow for my students. However, I'm just going to try and fire up the carving spark in my 5 year old. I have two little pumpkins for him to go at.

It seems so long ago that I was waste on the porch from harvest time

[susan53]

Wow - never seen anything like those. I can't imagine how you do it. I can't even get the eyes parallel and the same size, and when mine has a missing tooth it's because I sliced it off by mistake ...

[musica]

Fabulous Mark, I am so impressed.