Pumpkin Carving 09'

Every year one of my favorite things to do is carve a pumpkin. I have only started this tradition since Reed and I got married. I'm not sure where it came from, I think I just thought, " Hey, I can do that!" Ya know, like any crafty person does. And a couple years ago I found a new technique of shaving the pumpkin so it is translucent. Martha Stewart inspired! This requires many more steps such as hollowing it to 1/4" thick and cutting the holes first, then shaving. So the search for the new, challenging design begins as I scour through the internet. I like them to represent the halloween spirit, or our family. Mostly they say " trick or treat" or one year I did Simba when we went and saw Lion Kingthe musical. This year I found a haunted house scene that already showed me where to do my shaving and cutting. So I thought, "Awesome!" So it begins... I hollowed and bleached my pumpkin in the bathtub like I used to do in Alabama. ( I didn't do a pumpkin last year b/c we had just moved into the house and I was pregnant, so one of my carvings would have just been too much.) I copied the image off the internet and poked holes of it on the pumpkin. Once I finished this step I realized it would have looked so much better if I had made the image a little bigger and moved it up some b/c I cut out the bottom this year instead of the top, just to see. So what does Bridget do at 11pm at night... goes and redraws the whole thing larger, hoping that this time I poke the holes they will be a different size and see a distinct difference. Well, as you can probably guess, there was not much difference which led to me pretty much cutting freehand. The biggest problem was that when you shave a pumpkin you should cut all openings first like I said earlier...well I didn't really do that b/c I'm having to draw imaginary lines out of hundreds of dots on this pumpkin. I had been fortunate in years past not to have cut parts of my pumpkin I didn't want cut, well I think I did that like 5 times this year, guess that's what happens when you take a year off! I finally got it done and it actually lights pretty well. By the way the carving part I did in half a day, probably why I cut so much, to get ready for Fall Festival that night. Took it and it was a hit. But being the new mother that I am, I was so worried about getting Roman out of the cold, I left it in the back on the way home, so, you guessed it, more pieces broke! I was so sick. Well, at least I got pictures!!!

By the way, I have also learned that you don't carve a pumpkin early in Texas and think it's going to last til Halloween. It is so hot here, even after bleaching the thing, still molds! In Alabama, I could bleach it and carve it 2 weeks b/f Halloween and be able to turn it around til Thanksgiving and it be fine! Literally, my pumpkin is melting out there! Oh well! There's always next year!