Cosmetology Pumpkin Decorating Competition

Carrie Bradbury, Senior Editor and Review Desk Lead

Photos credit: Tonya Watson, Cosmetology teacher

Cosmetology class focuses on hairdressing, doing nails, and learning the other necessary skills for the beauty field. This Halloween season, students deviated from typical activities and instead of dressing up people, they dressed up pumpkins.

Cosmetology 1 and 2 students showed of the skills they learned in the first quarter by each decorating their own pumpkin in an original design. Many students transformed their pumpkins into a well-known character, while others recreated body parts.

The cosmetology department invited Watauga students and teachers to vote on their favorite design and identified three select students from each class as the podium winners.

Cosmetology 1

Amy Grace Greene

Greene came in first for Cosmetology 1, creating a pumpkin dressed in orange yarn and white paint that looked like the witch from "Hocus Pocus."

"For the hair I balled up some cotton to make two balls on top of her head," Greene said. "I took a lot of yarn after that and made it crazy. I don't think that I had any problems with mine, but during the first try the pumpkin did disintegrate."

Kaylean Castelletto

Coming in second place, Castelletto's pumpkin has a Queen of Hearts theme from the well-known movie "Alice in Wonderland."

"I had a hard time with the hair and working with that weird mesh stuff," said Castelletto. "I glued it down in a big heart shape on her head, and then I used pipe cleaner and ribbon to glue it down and make her have an actual hair line."

Castelletto put a large amounts of effort into her pumpkin design and background.

"I was so happy that I placed," said Castelletto. "I was telling myself all week I was going to lose, because I didn't want to be disappointed if I did."

Channel Vo

Vo's pumpkin was a play on the popular Maleficent character from "Sleeping Beauty." The pumpkin was first covered in white paint and then topped with black feathers and curved horns.

Vo's background piece was centered around the pumpkin and had a simple, dark teal background to go alongside the dark looking pumpkin design.

Cosmetology 2

Isabella Transou

Transou's project stands out due to its creative look and placed her in first for the Cosmetology 2 class.

Inspiration comes in all forms, and for Transou's pumpkin, it came from zombies.

"I was inspired by zombies for my project," said Transou. "I wanted to do something scary but I also didn’t want to do a character so I thought a big glamorous rhinestoned eyeball was a perfect idea."

While challenging at time, Transou found the project to be enjoyable and fun. Transou got to come up with the idea, and by doing something different from everyone else, her project stood out.

"I used acrylic paint, lots of different types of ribbon, glitter, rhinestones, fake worms, and red fairy lights," said Transou. "The process of making the pumpkin was fairly easy because I already knew exactly how I wanted it to look."

River Miller

Miller went with a classic Lorax themed design and found meaning in the project beyond just the competition, although she still managed second place. Like the other competitors, Miller used outside materials to add texture and character to her pumpkin.

"I really enjoyed this project because it gave me a chance to be creative and try some things I’ve never done before. I enjoyed being able to bring this childhood movie to life using different materials," Miller said. "My favorite part was seeing all the details come together. The Lorax also has a very unique meaning behind it because it reminds us how important nature is and why we should protect it instead of taking advantage of it and ruining it."

Bella Luviano

Luviano's third place pumpkin was in theme of "Five Night's at Freddy's," a popular video game and recent movie. The pumpkin was covered in white paint and then decorated with a simple face. Most of Luviano's creative abilities shows through in the background that she created for the pumpkin.

"I got my inspiration from the Five Nights at Freddy's video game. I thought that it would be really creative and cool to do," Luviano said. "The background was my main thing for the project and I put a lot of time into making it."

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