It’s that time of year when we like to get decorating our homes for Halloween. A key feature of this in every Halloween-loving house, is a pumpkin. Last year, I shared my tutorial for how to paint pumpkins and decorate them on the outside (here); but this year, I’ve got carving. I love Halloween as the preparations for it mark a change of season and that it’s time to get cosy. I wish we made more of Halloween in the UK. It’s done much better in the US. I loved being in Salem over Halloween one year and seeing all the houses decorated so ostentatiously. I’d love to visit New Orleans at Halloween too as they have the coolest parade!
I’ve teamed up with the guys at Prestige Cookware for this tutorial – they supplied me with a selection of their visually stunning and very useful Stone Quartz knifes* to carve my pumpkin with.
Step 1 – Choose Your Pumpkin
Try to choose a pumpkin that has as smooth a skin as possible, and is as uniform in colour as possible. This will help your design to stand out more and will make your pumpkin look more attractive.
Step 2 – Create a Lid
You need to be able to get inside your pumpkin to light it up, so you need to create a lid. With a small, sharp knife, cut a circle downwards around the stalk of the pumpkin, then lift off the cutaway section.
Step 3 – Empty Your Pumpkin
You need to scoop out the fleshy and fibrous contents of your pumpkin – it’s stringy, full of seeds and doesn’t smell that great; but it’s essential for carving and for lighting up the inside with tealights. The inside is very soft, so you will be able to use a spoon to do this, then a knife to scrape remaining strings from the inside. If you don’t want to waste the insides, you could always make a pumpkin pie!
Step 4 – Carve Your Pumpkin
Now it’s time to carve your pumpkin. Use a Sharpie to draw out your design, then cut just past these lines to remove the shapes from the pumpkin shell. You need to do one large star in the centre – the nose, two smaller stars above on each side – the eyes, then a long smile line for a mouth. It can be quite difficult to cut at first, but just work slowly.
Step 5 – Light Your Pumpkin
You can use real tealights and place them inside your pumpkin to light it, or you can use flickering battery-operated ones like I have. This means you can safely have your pumpkin on your front porch without the risk of a naked flame. Just lift the lid and pop them inside.
How are you styling your pumpkins this year?
This post contains press samples, but all opinions are my own.
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