Halloween 2009: Cool Stuff to make you smile
 

this should start if off right:

12-stone pumpkin grown by 3yo

12 stone (76.2 kilos) = 167 pounds for you Colonialists.

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download Halloween cat and mouse patterns

http://www.bhg.com/holidays/hallowee...mice-cut-outs/

Costumes. :D

Brandywine Cemetary is already up and looking awesome.... the website not only has pics of the finished product, but a work in progress report too.

happy halloween-y everyone.


:pumpkinsmiliehere:

[shiver]

The use of Flash on the web site is truly scary.

in what way?

I'm thinking of carving a pumpkin with my 5 yr. old nephew this year. Just something fun to create a new experience for him. Idea sounds great except one thing, I don't know how to carve a pumpkin. :p I looked at some youtube videos, but...hmm....:yelsick: Anyone has good instructions or video instructions on how to carve a pumpkin? Something simple and just for a tiny pumpkin, hihi. Oh yeah, in the videos I've seen, they mention roasting the seeds, but what do we do with the meat? Do we throw it away as it will rot by the time we're finish displaying the carved pumpkin?

Here ya go.:D

Another.

Again.

Personally, I think they show up better if you don't cut all the way through to the inside. Just cut through the outside skin and not the flesh. Like this...

Thank you, Bruce. :D

Having toured the supermarkets I wish, I wish, I wish I had a kid to share Halloween with (not enough to want my own though..!) They have such fun stuff. And after all, I still hve mine from last year.

Still, I enjoyed this website, Mon. All I can say is I'm no longer so ashamed to be a Brit - "Over the course of two evenings there were 910 guests and over $600 raised for charity. Less than 50p per head. Not knocking it, but it doesn't make us furriners blush in the way American tips do.

PS, Cap'n - the skull is superb. Bruce's carving pics are good, but I have never seen anything like that skull before.

Do you mean with a fancy pattern or just the triangle eyes and nose and a zig-zag or smiley mouth?

Just in the way that I find almost all flash use on web sites useless and/or tacky.

ah.

lots of non-computery people like it though. It's supposed to be tacky, I think.....

Just triangle eyes and nose and a smiley mouth. :D

then just visit your local dollar store and get some nice not-so-dangerous-to-kids tools and let rip

I've seen pumpkin carving "kits" in stores before. Seems like they had patterns for different faces and kid safe plastic knives and saws. Never tried one, though.

I've never heard of this place, but it looks cool.

@ Tulip draw the face on first to see if you like it.

Got pumpkins for my kids last night. They'll sit on the porch -hopefully unmolested by squirrels- until nearer the night, though. Otherwise they'll be horiid/gone by Halloween. They were on sale and I'm fed up of waiting until when I think it's the appropriate time to buy them (a couple of days in advance) and there being just the "character" pumpkins left.....

it is. It's a small bi-level in the middle of a sixties neighborhood less than 5 minutes walk from my house, so you're definitely forgiven for not having heard of it! I just find it so cool that this is right in the middle of a neighborhood and done for fun. He starts setting it up at the end of August.

Flash sites suck. Whoever thought they were the next best thing are sadly mistaken. Flash sites suck.

I usually carve my pumpkins the day of Halloween, set it outside until around 8:30 when we stop giving out candy. Then I cut it up and put it in the fridge. Then next day I can cook it up and use it for cookies, muffins, pies and stewed veg. Once its to that stage, I can freeze it to use later. We have never gotten sick cutting it up around 3-4 and leaving it outside in the cool/cold for 4-5 hours...

I wanna! I wanna!
I'm going to buy a pumpkin kit (stencils and tools - haven't seen a stencil only kit here but they're £1.99 so I'll forgo my monthly McDonalds breakfast) and pumpkin. I'll have an afternoon's pleasure carving it... or get Dads to do it and have an afternoon's pleasure watching him and reliving my childhood.

And If'n I'm allowed, I'll put it out the front. And if not I'll (grudgingly) offer it to my niece & nephew. In the hopes they refuse it and I can have it in our kitchen all night! Yay!

When we were younger - and poor, as I've said countless times - Dads carved out a grapefruit for us instead. Not that we usually had grapefruit, but it was smaller, cheaper and more obviously edible tham pumpkin. We carried it round on a saucer and were the envy of the neighbourhood. Simpler times.

Don't fret, Sundae. I've heard that the first jack o'lanterns were carved out of turnips. Get yerself a turnip! :)

Voila!

The first Jack-o-Lanterns were made in Ireland out of hollowed-out turnips. A piece of coal was inserted into the hollow and the "lantern" was meant to guide the way of poor old Jack who wasn't welcome in Heaven but was also barred from entering Hell for tricking the devil. According to legend, the devil gave this crude lamp to Jack so that he could walk the earth forever in limbo. When the Irish brought this tradition to America, they apparently decided that pumpkins were much easier to carve than turnips, and the modern-day Jack-o-Lantern was born!

Baldrick

Baldrick o' Lantern?

we used turnips when we were kids. Pumpkins just weren't around in the UK then. and hell, yeah they are so much easier to carve. Just before we left the UK there were pumpking at hallowen, but they were the pie pumpkins which are still a lot of hard work. Give me the huge hollow ones! (Pumpkin is not edible imo)

Pumpkin that's good to eat doesn't look like pumpkins that you carve.

http://images.marketplaceadvisor.cha...umpkinneck.jpg

still not edible.

That's all fine a good, but WTF is *that*?!

I only bought a teeny tiny pumpkin, so most likely, we'll just draw faces on it. And if we so care to dare, we may carve it. If carving it will kill it, then oh well...:p

Thanks for the advice, Monster! :D

my entry in the first annual Elverson Pumpkin carving contest:

LJ: I was wondering what the heck is that protruding when I realized the pumpkin is sidewise. :p

lit up

What the hell kind of pumpkin is that, they look like squash.
Anyway, the normal (carving) kind of pumpkin is very edible, makes great pie. And even better, if you drop a pumpkin pie it's still edible, it's just become squash. :lol2:

Nice carving job, LJ.

Tulip, next year you could practice on watermelon all summer then move up to pumpkin, in the fall.

It shouldn't be legal to do that to vegetables! YIKES!

Is it me, or does that Aliens mouth look a little like a.... nevermind.

Jim, nice job. I've been wanting to try it, but my wife thinks it's a waste of money. She thinks everything is a waste of money ...unless it's diamonds, shoes, handbags, or perfume.

The supermarkets all sell pumpkings :) at Halloween now. Carving ones. I didn't know there was a difference actually, never having wanted to eat one after having pumpking soup (okay, but just not my thing).

LJ - wow!
Is there anything you can't do?

And Bruce - omg. I forget that artists can work in any medium. I love the Alien pumking, but the watermelon woman scares the bejesus out of me. I keep thinking about how cold and wet she's be if you kissed her. Like a drowned lover in a mortuary.

If I ever see a.. well nevermind that looks like that I will be afraid. Very afraid. Maybe it IS just you, Radar. But then I've never actually seen you.;)

It's a neck or long neck pumpkin and they make a much better pie. The have more flavor and aren't as woody textured as Jacks.
But you're right, you can make a pie from a Jack, just like you can make a salad out of Iceburg.

I remember Halloween as a kid we used to go "Guising" (trick or treat) you call it over the pond,but you had to do a party piece to get any thing either a song or a poem.
http://www.rampantscotland.com/know/..._halloween.htm has some tales about halloween
I remember the turnip lanterns took ages to hollow out

I think that fucker just fell off a turnip truck.

VICTORY IS MINE!
 

We won 'most creative' pumpkins. If we like, we can have our pumpkins on the judges table during the parade this Wednesday.

Congratulations O Mighty Pumpkin Masters!!

Who will have the honor of smashing those award winning pumpkins?

Punkin Chunkin is coming up ...

Hearty Congratulations, LJ!

Several years ago I did a couple of really cool pumpkin carvings ... I did Cartman, Xena, and The Scream. Can't find any of the pictures, unfortunately.

Heh heh heh

One more week!

One way to keep them under control. ;)

Okay, not award winning.
But I respect myself for it.

C'mon! First one I ever carved.
See happy thread for rest of my Halloween happiness, ie getting to dress up.
FTR - like Valentine's, it's the same name but a completely different thing in this country. Think soccer in the US (as opposed to the rest of the world) as a comparison.

That's great, SG!

Very cool! You obviously have much more dexterity than I've ever been able to manage with a knife and a pumpkin.

better than any I've ever done.

Hmmm...something to think about. People may think I'm nuts with too much time on my hand for carving watermelons. :p

LJ: Congratulations! :D

Anyways, I've decided to let my nephew and his cousin to draw on the pumpkin for fun. :p I'm very clumsy, especially with a knife. I cut myself while chopping food and peeling stuffs all the time. The thought of me handling a knife around two 5 yr. olds is rather scary. Why not buy a pumpkin carving kit? Because I think it's a waste of money...:nuts::lol: hihi....just poking fun at Radar. Sorry if you don't think it's funny. :blush: I'm not sure I'd do this next year so no use buying a whole kit for something to be used only once. :D

Wow, looks more like a 20th pumpkin, than a first... excellent. :thumb2:

But if the kit helps you create a pumpkin you're pleased with, you'll be inspired to do it every year. Maybe watermelons, oranges and grapes too. Queen of Bento Box lunches, even. :D

Hmmmmm.....I like that idea of being Queen of Bento Box lunches...:king::lol: Maybe I will get the kit. It may be too late to carve the pumpkin with the kids but I can use it on oranges and watermelons. :D

If you don't get it in time you can pait them and save the kit for Bento Boxes. ;)

The School Parade
 

which was indoors due to the weather ...usually goes around 4 blocks in the neighborhood.....


....a clear winner in the beestmonsterfamily psychotically scary competition, I feel....

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