Tips to Carve the Perfect Pumpkin

Knowing some expert tips and tricks will make forming your jack-o-lantern easier. First, when carving your pumpkin, try to use a pumpkin-carving knife instead of a kitchen one. While a sharp kitchen knife will do just fine, using one designed to carve a pumpkin can make the process go a lot more smooth. Official pumpkin-carving tools are very common- you can find them in most stores around the time of Halloween. Second, decide which side of your pumpkin you want the face to be on. Try to pick the best-looking side, so that the bad side is hidden in the back.

Then, make a mark on the opposite side when you're carving out the top. This is to ensure you won’t forget what side you wanted to carve on. Third, once you have carved out all of the pulp and seeds out of the pumpkin, take a smaller spoon to thin out the inside walls of your pumpkin, so that when you go to carve it, the knife will slide through better, so you won’t have any accidental cuts. This will also just make the whole thing neater, and keep the candle from burning the pulp after the pumpkin is carved. There are spoons made for this job as well, which can come in sets with carving knives. These special spoons make a big difference when cleaning out the pumpkin.

To carve out the cool designs on your pumpkin- first, get an idea and sketch it lightly. Once you have that, get creative with it. You can use all the parts of the pumpkin to make teeth, fangs, eyes, or noses! To make teeth/fangs, you will need to carve out the shape of the mouth- and use that piece to cut out sharp triangles with your knife. Then, you would take a toothpick to skewer it on the inside of the pumpkins mouth. For the nose, you can simply just use the stem of the pumpkin by drawing your mouth- and face around it, and working on the top part of the pumpkin (rather than on the side like most people do). Finally, for the eyes, instead of carving them out try just carving off a thin layer of the pumpkin skin in that area. This allows a cooler, more subtle effect, and creates more of a glowy touch to it- that really makes it stand out!

Now that you know some tips and tricks, consider these unique pumpkin-carving ideas! You could carve a large pumpkin with an open mouth and stick another, smaller pumpkin in the gap, making the larger pumpkin appear to be eating. You could also leave the pulp and goo inside the pumpkin for the end, resulting in a jack-o-lantern with slime coming out of the mouth! Looking for a less gory idea? How about carving small holes all around the pumpkin in order to create a Halloween disco ball? The possibilities are endless with pumpkin-carving, and there are many other ideas you can come up with yourself to make your pumpkin more original!