10 Ways to Up Your Pumpkin Carving Game

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Pumpkin carving is a Halloween tradition that makes for a great date night or family fun night.

Do you want your jack-o-lanterns to be the best in your neighborhood this Halloween? Do you just want to know how to do something other than three triangles and a squiggly line? Then read our ten best pumpkin-carving tips so you can carve the best pumpkin on your date night or family fun night.

1. Don’t Pick a Boring Pumpkin

Pumpkins come in a ton of unique shapes, sizes, and varieties. Instead of searching for a pumpkin that is perfectly round and tall, try searching for a pumpkin with character. It could be a different color, like white or green; it could have a long crooked stem; or it could be lopsided and covered with warts. These traits can lend to whatever creative design you choose—a pumpkin covered with warts could make a wonderful witch or a leaning pumpkin could make a great zombie.

2. Cut your Pumpkin Like a Rebel

The most underutilized tip on this list is to cut from the bottom of your pumpkin to scoop out the seeds instead of from the top. That leaves the beautiful stem in tact and you don’t have to worry about fitting pieces back into place, because the lights can rest on the ground. However, for the true creatives out there, you could also cut from the back or side of your pumpkin, depending on your design. There’s no rule that you have to cut and scoop in any particular way, so think about what suits your pumpkin best.

3. Turn It Whichever Way You Choose

While you are coming up with your design and how to scoop out the innards, remember that you can also rotate your pumpkin. If you want the stem to face out towards the front instead of up (for example, as a nose for your acne-ridden witch) you can cut from the side and turn the pumpkin to balance on the flat opening. The bottom dimple could also look interesting facing out instead of resting on the ground, where we normally would never see it. Get creative—just be sure to have a plan to keep the pumpkin from falling over.

4. Think Before You Cut

This tip is obvious, yet so many people ignore it: make a plan for your design before you start. While it seems easy, pumpkin carving requires thinking like an artist. You have to anticipate your negative and positive space, the parts that will shine through in the light and the parts that will not. Because pieces of pumpkin cannot float magically in midair, you also have to keep the intricate parts of the pumpkin connected. Anyone who has carved a pumpkin before has encountered this challenge and knows that a little planning can go a long way.

If you have an idea, plot out how you anticipate to go ahead with it. Look at examples on the internet for inspiration to start, then trace with a pencil before you cut and imagine the end result as you go. If you are not the creative type, that’s okay too. Most pumpkin carving kits come with stencils that yield surprisingly great results, or you can get a book of them.

5. Who Says You Can Only Use One?

Use more than one pumpkin, or incorporate smaller gourds into your design. You may have seen others play with this idea too, with a big pumpkin chomping down on a small pumpkin as a snack, or a few pumpkins making faces at one another. There are so many ways to get creative with more than one gourd: you can make a family of pumpkins, a stack of small pumpkins forming one face, or pumpkins wearing weirdly-shaped gourds as hats. Remember your warty witch pumpkin? She could have a long gourd peeping out as a nose.

Using different tools can help you Go beyond your basic three triangles and a squiggly line.

6. Think About Your Tools

The basic pumpkin-carving kit equips you with the tools you need for cleaning out your pumpkin and doing straight-forward cuts. The serration on the knives and spoons actually does a great job of getting out the goop and making holes. Yet if you want anything more intricate than that, you have to get tools that fit your needs. Try using linoleum block cutters, which don’t cost much more than your standard pumpkin carving kit, for a variety of details that a knife just can’t do. A melon-baller works for perfectly round holes and, for texture, try your lemon zester.

7. Thin It Out

Experts in pumpkin-carving (oh yes, they exist), take an extra step at the beginning of the process to make carving easier. While scraping out the inside of the pumpkin to free it of all seeds and goop, they thin out the shell of the pumpkin so it is about 3/4-inch to 1-inch thick all the way around. How can you tell how thick the shell is? Test it with a sewing pin as you go. That way, the light will shine through evenly, especially when you are scraping your design.

8. Scrape Instead of Carve

You probably have seen pumpkins that utilize scraping instead of carving, or that use a combination of both. For professional effect, try scraping your pumpkin to get more sophisticated details. If you thin out the shell, as described above, and use the proper tools, also above, the light will still shine through and your neighbors will think you are some kind of artistic genius. Keep in mind, this will take practice to get good at. But, since pumpkin-carving is inherently fun, you probably won’t mind the practice.

9. Paint It, Too

Painting is a great alternative to carving if you want your pumpkins to last awhile. But have you ever considered that you can do both? Paint can enhance the way your pumpkin looks during the day, since you will only light it up at night. It can also add shadows and highlights to the places you have carved. Try using a non-toxic acrylic paint or paint markers to enhance your carving with paints, and look up ideas online for how others have used paint to get creative with their pumpkins.

10. Use More than One Light

Our last tip might make you think, once again, “Why have I never thought of that?” When lighting up your pumpkins to show off your incredible carving skills, use more than one candle or LED light. Most experts recommend using between four and eight lights to get the most glow out of your pumpkin. Luckily, you can order LED tea lights in bulk for your family’s pumpkins, which is most definitely the safest option. After putting so much hard work in creativity into your pumpkins, they deserve to shine brightly.

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