Night of the Living Gourds

One of my favorites things about fall is pumpkins.  Really, what's not to love?  They're bright, come in numerous shapes and sizes, they're tasty, and even the word "pumpkins" is the best.  Not only is it a fun word to say, it's one of those words that seems to perfectly describe the object that it represents.  A rose by any other name may smell just as sweet, but a pumpkin by any other name would just be wrong.  Or something.  Anyway, I had a day off from work earlier in the week, so I decided to carve up my pumpkins.  This year I decided to do two pumpkins: one regular and one with some bite.


But before we get to the pumpkin carving portion of the blog, I'd like to take a minute to talk to you all about pumpkin transportation safety.  Always be sure to properly secure all pumpkins when transporting them.  You don't want your pumpkins rolling around your vehicle and risk getting busted, do you?

Alright, to the carving!  I've been watching a lot of Martha Stewart lately and saw these pumpkins on her show.  Back in August or September I went to an outdoor showing of New Moon and they gave out these glow in the dark fangs to everyone in the audience.  I never got rid of them, and when I saw Martha's pumpkins I knew I'd have to make one and was super excited to actually get the chance to use the fangs again.

"Say it!"  "You're a, a, A PUMPKIN!"

It took me forever to decide what to do with my other pumpkin.  Last year I carved up an owl and it turned out pretty cute, but I didn't know if I wanted to do it again.  I briefly entertained the idea of doing a Ron Swanson pumpkin or a narwhal pumpkin with the stem acting as a horn, but I'm honestly not that skilled at carving.  So I figured I'd be boring and go with the owl again.  To aide in my carving I ended buying one of those pumpkin carving tool kits at Target.  Let me tell you, that was some of the best four dollars and change I've ever spent.  It really helped speed up the process, especially compared to the paring knife and ice pick combo I used last year.  Yeesh.  DO NOT RECOMMEND. 

So with the aide of my nifty new kit, I started scooping out the seeds and strings and goop, which is one of my favorite parts of pumpkin carving.  There's just something so fun about being elbow deep in some glop.  Kinda like when you were a kid and played in the mud; it's dirty, messy, and kinda gross, but that's part of the appeal.  After scraping all the guck out, I sketched the basic outline of what I wanted my owl to look like on the actual pumpkin, using the ridges as a guide.  I probably could've drawn it out on a piece of paper and then transferred it onto the pumpkin, but I kinda just wanted to start carving and see where it would go.     

Happy Owl-Ween!

What I really liked about this pumpkin was that it had a great round shape, a twisty stem, and these green stripes running down the sides.  The owl only adds to the pumpkin's greatness, in my opinion.

There's one more little pumpkin that I carved up, but instead of using gourd, I used felt.  You might not know this, but I LOVE felt and there are tons of really cool felt crafting books out there.  I bought this book not too long ago and decided to make one of the little felties out of it the other night when I was watching The Walking Dead, because I wanted to craft but also wanted to stay in theme.

To kill a Zomb-kin, rub with olive oil, salt and pepper, and cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

He may be the rotting, re-animated rind of a pumpkin, but his goopy seed-brains are sequined and FABULOUS.  For some reason I kept loosing him that night and it amused me to imagine him running around the house terrorizing the produce.  ZEEEST! ZEEEST!  (That's pumpkin-zombie for brains.  Duh.) 

Happy Halloween!