Get Your Pumpkin Carving On!
Can't think of what to carve your Halloween pumpkin as this year? We agree, pumpkin carving ideas are tough to come up with. That’s why we created our
Pets Best Love Stencil, for dog and cat lovers. Or if you’re looking for something more specific, check out these
downloadable dog breed pumpkin stencils hosted by
POPSUGAR. Show your neighborhood just how wild you are about pets with these pet inspired stencils and you’ll have one of the best looking pumpkins on the block!
Pets Best Love Stencil Directions:
Show off just how much you LOVE your pets with this stencil. We even tested this one to make sure it’s a winner! Reader beware though, this pumpkin carving stencil is not for the faint of heart and requires some finesse. We walk you through how we accomplished the task below.
What You’ll Need
- Pumpkin carving knife
- Bowl for holding pumpkin scraps
- Scotch tape
- Push pin or tack
- Spoon
- Stencil
Clean Your Pumpkin
You have to start somewhere. Begin by cutting the lid for your pumpkin. We recommend making it a little bit larger to make it easy to clean the inside out. Next, get to scraping! Remove all of the seeds and scrape the inside surface of the pumpkin where you plan to carve your design. This will make the area thinner and easier to carve. Plus, it allows the light to better transfer through the pumpkin where you’ll be scraping to remove the orange skin of the pumpkin.
Transfer the Stencil
Now that your pumpkin is nice and clean, you’re ready to begin transferring your stencil to the pumpkin. Begin by taping your stencil on to the outside of the pumpkin. Next, transfer the stencil to the outside of the pumpkin by poking along the outline of the stencil with your tack. Once you’ve “traced” the stencil to the outside of the pumpkin, remove the paper stencil. If the outline is difficult to see try retracing the holes you poked with a marker or pushing the pin a little deeper.
Get to Carving
Finally, it’s time to carve! Using your pumpkin carving knife, follow the outline you made when transferring the stencil. We found that some of the smaller pumpkin carving knives used for more complex designs worked well for the intricate parts of this stencil. Make sure to follow the directions on the stencil showing where to cut and where to scrape. In this case, we used the edge of a butter knife to scrape away the orange pumpkin skin to form the dog and cat figures.
That’s all there is to it! Ok, well maybe there’s the cleanup, but we’ll skip going into detail for that part. Place a glow stick in your pumpkin, replace the lid, and try not to get too frightened this Halloween!
P.S. Check out the Pets Best crew below conducting some valuable R&D for this post.
