Mummy Pumpkin

The last of the Martha Stewart Living pumpkins is a mummy!! I can't find it on the website but it's in this month's magazine! So you will need:
-oblong pumpkin/gourd
-white streamers
-some type of tack for the eye
-black permanent marker
-mini saw for carving pumpkins
-tape

I started off with an acorn squash as I thought it would be the perfect shape.

 

Then I cut out the holes for the eyes and put the thumbtacks in.

 

However, at that point the squash started 'crying'. Juices were oozing out of the circles I'd cut out as you can see in the pictures above. I didn't want to wrap it in the streamer because it would get yucky so I put the squash holes-down on paper towels on Saturday and left it for two days (my original intention was one but I got side-tracked Sunday and made them on Monday instead). Then I could finally start wrapping! Just go around and around until you get what you like and put two dots on the tacks for eyes with the marker. Note: Martha called for double sided tape but I made it work with normal!

 

Here's mine!

Doesn't he look cozy? He might be more baby pumpkin than mummy pumpkin :)

I made another zombie and vampire pumpkin too on Monday!

One eye socket was accidentally made too big but it still kind of works. I used a larger mouth template since my pumpkin was bigger and tried to make the eyes further apart.

For the vamp, I made sure I made my mouth template inside the lines as my teeth were a bit smaller.

October is nearly halfway over! Are you decorated for Halloween?

Zombie Pumpkins

While flipping through a copy of Martha Stewart Living magazine, I stumbled across a bunch of easy pumpkin carving ideas that I HAD to try! I hadn't carved pumpkins in years but the moment I saw them, I rushed out for supplies. The first was a zombie pumpkin. Here's what Martha's looked like:

 

I couldn't find white pumpkins anywhere so I just tried to find some of a small-medium size. I wanted something a bit different and not just orange (although I'll be using that later and featuring all my pumpkins together at the end of the week) so I bought a buttercup squash from the grocery store.

 

I made circles for the eyes and just kept carving them until they were big enough that the eye wedged in the hole. These will need to be 'cone' shaped (so angled). I found the buttercup squash to have an extra difficult to cut rind. It also turned my fingers temporarily green!

Then, with the label that I printed from the zombie page (linked above), I used a thumb tack to draw an outline of the mouth which made it a lot easier to carve.

Then you just shove the eyeballs in at different angles and you have your zombie! I think mine looks more silly than zombie-ish but it's still so cute! I smile every time I see it! In retrospect, I think when I make another one this week, I'll space the eyes further apart to see if that helps.

 braiinnssss

Stay tuned all week for more pumpkins - including vampire and mummy all courtesy of Martha Stewart Living!