Pumpkin Selection
Advance planning is the key to pumpkin carving success. First, decide before
buying your pumpkins what designs you will be carving into them. This will
allow you to create a shopping list or at least a mental idea of the shapes
and sizes of pumpkins you will need. For standard carving decide if it should
be tall and narrow, or more rounded based on your ideas. Select a pumpkin that is
ripe, has no bruises, cuts or nicks. If you will be using a template to carve
your pumpkin, select a pumpkin that is large enough and as close to the same
shape as the pattern you're going to carve. It should be as smooth as possible
and free of scratches, dents or gouges. Care should be taken not to bruise during
transport or storage, as this will shorten their life span.

Basic Carving Tools and Tool Care
Care should be taken not to bend knife blades or carving saw blades. Carving
blades are thin and brittle and are particularly subject to breaking. If you take
good care of your carving tools they'll last much longer. Always clean your
tools after use and store them for the next Halloween.

Boning Knife
We use this long, thin bladed knife to cut the top hole and any other large
pieces out of the pumpkin.

Modified Paring Knife
We took a small paring knife to the grinder to make a very thin bladed
knife for small detail work.

Sharpening Stone
Knives work best when sharp and are actually safer because they require less
force to provide the necessary cuts. We sharpen our knives before and during
our pumpkin carving.

Gutting Spoon
We use a large metal ladle type to scrap the inside of the pumpkin to remove the
guts. You can use a grinder to sharpen one edge of the spoon to help speed
up the gutting process.

Tooth Picks
If you make a mistake that removes a piece of needed pumpkin, you can use a
tooth pick or two to hold the piece in place.

All Purpose Saw
The All Purpose Saw is used for cutting lids or bottoms of pumpkins. It is also
good for fast carving of larger areas and to develop your skills.

Detail Saw
The Detail Saw is essential for carving fine, detailed areas, but can be used
for the entire Jack-O-Lantern.

Poker Tool
The Poker Tool is used to transfer your designs onto the face of the pumpkin.
It can also be used for creating small holes.

Drill Tool
The Drill Tool is a must for carving round holes.

Carving Basics
Start by placing the pumpkin on several layers of newspaper, this makes
it much less messy and allows for easier cleanup. With a long, thin bladed
knife, cut out the top of the pumpkin around the stem of the pumpkin. While
you can cut a round circle out, you'll find that cutting a five or six
sided opening will work the best. The hole should be large enough to easily
remove the guts, seeds and stringy membrane by hand or with a large spoon.
When you are finished cutting, simply push out the pieces to view the final
results. Now you're all set to light up your home on Halloween night. Lastly, you
will want to cut one or two small holes in the top of the pumpkin to allow
heat from the candle to escape.

If you have your opening in the bottom, you can just set the candle down
in a holder and put the pumpkin over it. You can also have a one-bulb holder
replace the candle and plug your pumpkin in. This is good due to the fact that
it lets so much more light glow though the shell of your little demon, the glowing
iron effect again. We prefer the candle though because the flicker is so much
more woodland creepy. Take some nutmeg and cinnamon and rub it into the inner
top of your pumpkin. When the light is turned on or the candle lit, the heat
will bake the spices and fill your home or porch with the smell of pumpkin pie!
Visitors will love knocking on your door with these smells lingering in the air.

Carving with Stencils
Prepare the pumpkin as you would for basic carving, cut top hole and gut
it out. The only difference is that it is important to scrape the inner
wall of the pumpkin, so that it is no more than 1" thick. This is usually
only a problem with large pumpkins. Select the pattern you want to use
and trim the excess paper from the pattern with scissors. Now attach the
pattern to the face of the pumpkin with tape. If you have difficulty smoothing
the pattern on the round pumpkin you can soak the paper pattern with water
first. Then carefully position the wet pattern over the face of the pumpkin.
The water will allow the paper to better conform to the contours of the
pumpkin. Since the paper will be wet you won't be able to use tape to attach
it to the pumpkin, but you can use thumbtacks. Be sure to allow the paper
to completely dry before attempting to transfer the design.

With the Poker Tool press the pointed tip into and through the design lines
of the pattern spaced about an 1/8" apart. Complex designs might require
dots closer together. It should be pushed in just enough to go through
the paper and the skin of the pumpkin, not all the way into the pumpkin.
Before removing the pattern, look it over very carefully to make sure that
all the lines have been transferred.

Now you can start carving or actually sawing. Carefully cut the design
out using both the All Purpose Saw and Detail Saw. It's important to remember
that these are saws, not knives. If you bend or twist the tool to much
it will break the blade. Align the saw blade to make the cuts straight
into the pumpkin. When making sharp corners, remove the saw and re-insert
it at the new angle. Starting from the center of the design and working
outward, push the tip of the saw blade into a hole and saw down the design
lines with a short back and forth motion, while applying light pressure
in the direction of the line you are working on. Basically you're playing
connect the dots. Saw steadily with a continuous up and down motion. Carefully
push cut pieces out with your finger or an unsharpened pencil. Lastly,
cut or drill the vent hole in the top to allow heat from the candle to escape

Lighting and Safety
We prefer the traditional use of lit candles in our pumpkins. Votive candles,
placed in clear glass candle holders are safer and last longer. Plain white
candles give off the most light. Remember, any fire, no matter how small
or protected has the potential for becoming a large and potentially disastrous
fire. This should always be the number one concern. Never leave a lit candle
unsupervised. Have a plan just in case a fire does break out and keep
a fire extinguisher readily available and see that everyone knows how to use
it. Never leave children unattended with a lit pumpkin, candles or other
sources of fire. You can also hang pumpkins in wire plant hangers to make them
easier to see and safer from young trick-or-treaters who get overly curious.

A Pumpkin's Life Span
Depending on your local weather, a pumpkin can have a carved life of from a
week to only a day. The best way to make a carved pumpkin last longer is to
slow down the dehydration process that accompanies a carved pumpkin. When
pumpkins shrivel up, it's because they have lost moisture. You can usually
restore them back to their original condition by soaking them in water
overnight. Once the carving of a pumpkin is complete, we coat all cut surfaces
of the pumpkin with petroleum jelly. This includes a light coating of the
entire inside of the pumpkin. This will help to seal in much of the pumpkins
internal moisture and slow down the dehydration of the pumpkin. Because
of the amount of pumpkins we carve for Halloween, we usually carve most,
if not all the pumpkins the day before Halloween. Because temperature,
particularly heat, has such an effect on pumpkins, we place them in a refrigerator
immediately after the carving is complete. Depending on the temperature
and humidity, you should be able to get anywhere from 3 to 5 days out of your
carved Jack-O- Lantern.

Photographing your Pumpkins
Ideally, what you want is to capture the glow from within the pumpkin and the
outside of the pumpkin it's self. The light used to illuminate the outside
of the pumpkin and that of the candles inside is actually a delicate balance.
If you use a flash, you'll over light the surface of the pumpkin and drown
out the light from the candles inside. First off, turn the flash on your
camera off, you don't want it. To help avoid the light inside the pumpkin
from being to faint, we use two or even three candles.

The best bet is to do one of two things. Wait until dark, illuminate the outside
of the pumpkin with in-direct artificial light, like a lamp and light the
candles inside the pumpkin. The other technique is to take your pictures
around dusk, before it becomes totally dark. Be sure to use a fast film,
ISO 400 or faster is best.

~ Scream ~ Scream is a screaming Jack-O-Lantern. Scream was adopted by The Bloem's on October 11, 2000 from Nightlyre's Adopt-A-Haunt Program.

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