Making Punpkin Faces

I've never carved a pumpkin before. Enough episodes of Buffy & The Simpsons Halloween have convinced me that I wanted to at least make an attempt at one, even at this late juncture of my life. Not having grown up in a culture that celebrated Halloween, all this is new to me.

But, as with many things in my life right now, I learnt how to carve a pumpkin on YouTube. There were really elaborate designs of dragons and wizards and even Barbie, that you could download and print a template from. This, you could put on your pumpkin, trace out the design by pricking holes through the paper onto the pumpkin face and then start carving out the hollows with your sharp knife. After being thoroughly impressed and somewhat overwhelmed with all the choice, I chose the old way. I did what B did when he was a kid making pumpkin heads, I drew up a couple of faces on paper and then copied them with a Sharpie onto the big orange squash and I was ready to wield my chopper with the best of them.

First it was "OFF WITH THE Top of the HEAD!!!", then you scrape all the guts out. Seeds, juice and all. It was a great big messy affair and my weeks worth of newspapers couldn't contain the flinging, chopping and dripping pumpkin parts. Three days down the road, the house still smells of that squashy massacre.



I thought I'd have a practice pumpkin, a smaller one with easier lines.
As you can see, Munch would have been proud of my ode to his Scream. Of course I had to show my creation off.










All day on Halloween, my little screamie pumpkin head had his insides stuffed with dried Oak leaves and greeted the customers coming into the bookstore.



The next one was bigger and has a kind of sugar-high crazed vampire bat look to it. I mean, a pumpkin head had to be , at least, a little scary, right? I liked this too. The eye-balls were the trickiest to carve out.


Despite lighting both the heads and leaving the out on our deck on Halloween night, no trick-or-treaters came a- knocking. Good thing too. Because B & I couldn't resist and ate almost all the candy before nightfall....