We tried something new this year with carving our pumpkins, and it worked. So many things I try don't turn out like the Pinterest perfect pictures, but this really worked. And it was easy, or at least not any harder than the previous way we carved our pumpkins.
We used an inexpensive pumpkin carving kit with tools and stencils similar to this one HERE. I've never used one of these kits before and I don't know what took me so long. Seriously, it was so much easier than using my big ol' kitchen knife. The tools in the kit are not as durable as your kitchen knives (one ended up breaking on us), so we also used a Pampered Chef safe cutter which they don't sell anymore but it was a more substantial version of the carving kit tool and worked great, even for cutting out the stem part. As for the stencils, we only used the witch one. The batman one we printed from online, and my oldest daughter drew her own design for her pumpkin.
We started out by carving out the stem and cleaning out the guts. My younger daughter was so helpful since my little guy thought the guts were gross.
I printed out the Batman logo from online, cut it out and traced it onto the pumpkin.
Using the carving tool from the pumpkin carving kit, we carved out the logo. The small knife wasn't that sharp but easily cut the design out and got in and out of the curves with no problems.
My Batman fan loved his Batman pumpkin.
Of course we had to see what it looked like at night.
My daughter wanted the witch design that was included with the pumpkin carving kit.
I'll admit, I had my doubts as to how good this would look, especially since I cut some corners and left some of the intricate details off.
But as you can see, it turned out great. Looks even better all lit up at night. My daughter also wanted to paint part of her pumpkin (after seeing her sister paint hers) so that's why the top is grey and black.
My oldest daughter planned her own design. She wanted to make a Cinderella pumpkin.
First she painted it. She couldn't find white acrylic paint and used tempera paint instead. Note: tempera paint will flake off, don't use it.
The white tempera paint was flaking off but there was no turning back. She carved out the window with Cinderella's silhouette inside.
Once again, it looks pretty lit up at night.
Anyone else try those pumpkin carving kits. We'll be saving the tools and extra stencils for next year. Can't believe I didn't do this sooner!
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