How to Carve a Halloween Pumpkin Like a Pro
Originally published October 18, 2011, Updated on 10/5/20
How to Carve a Halloween Pumpkin like a pro! Many tips for how to shave a pumpkin, and about carving or shaving a fake pumpkin, as well!
Note: This post has grown in scope over the years - so keep scrolling for details on carving and shaving both fresh and foam pumpkins!
Halloween is such a fun time, and my husband and I look forward to it all year.
When I first posted this - 9 years ago! - I mentioned the fact that our big yearly Halloween tradition involved driving to Chicago for a weekend convention.
Being away for the weekend tended to preclude us from things like bothering to decorate our house.
Not a big deal on its own, I just mentioned it because it definitely hampered any potential I may - or may not! - have had at pumpkin carving! I may (or may not!) have at pumpkin carving - or even just Halloween crafting in general - is largely un-realized!
So, I enlisted the help of Alex Wer, "The Pumpkin Geek", asking him to write a guest post for me.
He’d been having a super productive ROCK STAR year and a half at that point. He’d counted Jeri Ryan, LeVar Burton, Gene Simmons, Joe Mantegna, Brad Paisley, and Taylor Swift among his fans - they’re all proud owners of his work.
That year alone, he’d been written up in international news, online newspapers, blogs, he appeared on “Good Morning America”, and “The Doctors”, and had shipped his work to 9 different countries!.
In the spirit of Halloween, check out some of his horror movie carves:
(I’ve since used Alex’s tips as some guidance to up my own pumpkin carving game. Keep reading on, after his tips, for a new tutorial, complete with photos!)
Anyway, without further Ado... here's Alex!
Alex Wer Guest Post
When Marie asked The Pumpkin Geek to write a blog, I thought, "The Pumpkin Geek can do that!" ...Then I thought, "Why the HELL am I referring to myself in the 3rd person!?" So...let's start again.
Ok, my name is Alex Wer & I am a geek - albeit, of the sexy nature! - but still, a geek!
Why do I think this? Because I can drone on endlessly about pumpkin carving. I can stare at my creations at any hour of the day & determine where I could've improved on my latest effort.
Some of you may understand this obsession, most will not! However, once you cross over to the Dark Side*, there is no turning back!
While I would LOVE to teach each one of you how to carve as I do (OK, that’s a complete lie...then no one would have any need for me!), you'll have to settle for some basic tips on how it’s possible to carve something better than your friends! After all, that IS the goal!
Oh, and if you manage to get through this blog, you WILL have an idea that you can do to impress the neighbors!
Getting Started with Pumpkin Carving
First thing you should do is get one of those $5 carving kits. They work great, are completely safe, and a lot of them have cool stencils you can take a crack at and they come with pretty much all the tools you need.
(Marie's note: As suggested by a reader, a more "permanent" set of carving tools is a great asset to have. She recommends: These, which is the set I have.)
Next, if you DO choose to use a stencil, make 3-4 inch slits extending inward from the outer areas of the paper, this will help "mold" it to the ‘kin. You can secure it by taping it onto the surface.
Now, depending on how complicated the carve is, there are a few ways to go next...OK, somehow this blog went from "pithy fun" to everyone reading so intently!
You need to "trace" the pattern onto the kin, either pressing firmly with a pen, poking holes with the "pokey thingy", or even an exacto knife (be CAREFUL!) to pre-cut the areas. Once you have your outline, you're ready to carve!
"But my friends have those stencils, too", you say!? What I suggest is going on-line & finding something you want to carve under "coloring pages". Here's an R2D2 as an example:
Shaving a Pumpkin
Want something REALLY different? Well, another option is trying your hand at shaving the pumpkin! I know, ladies, you shave enough, can you get at least ONE night off!? 🙂
What you need is about $5-$10 of sculpting clay tools:
You can use these to "shave" the areas that are white in you image.
Same concept as before, but instead of cutting through the pumpkin, carve ½" - 1" deep & scoop away the pumpkin flesh as evenly as you can!
You can still gut the ‘kin & use a few candles to shine thru (you’ll need to shave/carve deep enough so the image is visible), or, don't gut the pumpkin at all, simply leaving it as is!
In that case, you only need to peel the orange skin off - your carve will last MUCH longer. No light, but you get to keep your creation for a month or so!
Soaking Your Carved Pumpkin
Last tip...when you're done carving, relax & take a bath!
No, not YOU, your PUMPKIN!!! Yes, believe it or not, it will last much longer if you soak it in the tub. Think of an apple...cut it open, leave it out, dries out quickly. Same concept with the pumpkin.
When I used to carve on real kins, I had a bathtub full of pumpkins floating around!
Come to think of it ... Mrs. Pumpkin Geek was in there a LONG time when I carved Aragorn!
So, I hope this little session has been helpful. It's my first blog entry, so please don't hate Marie for having me do this!
Hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween! If you're ever on Twitter, would love for you to follow me - @ThePumpkinGeek! I tweet a lot, so consider yourselves warned!
Alex Wer
The Pumpkin Geek
* I'm sorry, while we're on "The Dark Side" subject, did Luke Skywalker look over at the end of the Lucas Re-Issue "Return of the Jedi" episode and wonder, "Who the heck is the young, blonde dude next to Yoda & Ben?"?
Before I get to my thoughts on both carving and shaving a fake pumpkin - and photos of my terrible first attempt at shaving a foam pumpkin, ever - a few things:
Share the Love!
Be sure to take some pics of your handiwork! If you Instagram it, be sure to tag me - @CelebrationGenerationCA - or post it to My Facebook Page - so I can cheer you on!
Also, be sure to subscribe to my free monthly email newsletter, so you never miss out on any of my nonsense.
Well, the published nonsense, anyway!
More Halloween Ideas
If you're still considering ideas for Halloween, be sure to check out my:
Bloody Eyeball Halloween Punch
Easy Halloween Bat Cupcakes
Halloween Pavlova
Halloween Shot Recipes
Halloween Spider Web Cookies
Halloween Spider Web Cupcakes
3D Halloween Bat Cupcakes
Also, be sure to subscribe to my free monthly email newsletter, so you never miss out on any of my nonsense.
Well, the published nonsense, anyway!
How to Carve a Halloween Pumpkin like a pro! Many tips for how to shave a pumpkin, and about carving or shaving a fake pumpkin, as well!
How to Shave a Fresh Pumpkin
Getting Started
- Make sure the outside is clean. Scrub off any dirt, trim any unwanted leaves/vine leftover, etc.
- Clear your workspace, gather your tools.
- Cut your “lid” and access hole. I like to do an asymmetrical opening (to easily see which way it fits!), and to cut inwards at an angle, to prevent the lid from falling into the pumpkin later.
- Scoop the insides out. I never bother using the pumpkin carving set for this, I go right to my metal, long handed cooking spoons and ladles.
I like to get it as dry as possible, scraping down the inside to remove as many of the stringy bit as possible.
Applying Your Pattern
- Print your design out on paper. Before getting started, hold the paper against the pumpkin to make sure your design fits well.
- Trim excess paper from around the design as much as possible, while still leaving an inch or so border.
This will allow you to tape the design on, without taping over the design.
- Cut a few snips inward from the outer edge, but not cutting into the design. This will help you mold the paper to the pumpkin.
- Position the paper on the pumpkin, folding and/or mashing the outer edges down to form-fit. Tape around the outer edge of the pumpkin.
I like to use painter’s tape, as it won’t leave a residue when you remove it later.
- Use a pin, pen, or the “pokey tool” from your pumpkin carving set to poke through the lines of the design, into your pumpkin.
I like to do this slightly outside the lines, in the direction of whatever is being cut / shaved off.
Establishing Your Borders
- Remove your pattern. Check to make sure your whole design has been transferred to the pumpkin.
- Using a SHARP craft knife, trace along your design marks. Be sure to get down a bit - you want to get through the orange rind, but not all the way through the pumpkin.
- As you get a section done, start carefully carving the rind away from the areas to be exposed.
”Shaving” the Pumpkin
Once the areas to be “shaved” are clear of orange coating, you’re ready to shave it. Sort of.
... at that point, I put a light inside to see how it looks, and realized I needed to cut a lot deeper to make any kind of a difference!
I do like to err on the side of caution - You can always carve and shave more away, but adding back to a design is less of an option!
Use the tools to continue scraping out pumpkin flesh - varying the depths to which you carve - until you’re happy with the result.
Keep in mind - what you see when carving is not necessarily what it will look like when illuminated. You really have to exaggerate the depths that you’re shaving to, for it to show up when lit.
Anyway. Behold, my 2020 pumpkin!
How to Carve a Halloween Pumpkin like a pro! Many tips for how to shave a pumpkin, and about carving or shaving a fake pumpkin, as well!
Shaving a Fake Pumpkin
I’ll be real with you, shaving a fake pumpkin isn’t easy or fun.
This was my first time doing it, so take this section of the post as less of a “like a pro” and more of a “learn from the mistakes of someone else who tried it for the first time.
Less a tutorial for shaving a fake pumpkin, and more a series of observations of what worked - and didn’t work - for me!
So, first of all: Do as I say, not as I do. ONLY use a really sharp - ideally new - blade. Old blades not only make for a lot more work, they’re also dangerous to use. The blade I used was neither new nor sharp.
Anyway...
Getting Started
Preparing the pumpkin works the same as it does for a real pumpkin, in a lot of ways.
- Make sure the outside is clean. If you have any labels on there, carefully remove them, gently remove any residue. It is MUCH easier to do this when you have a whole pumpkin that hasn’t been cut into at all!
- Clear your workspace, gather your tools.
- Cut your “lid” and access hole. Much like with a real pumpkin, I like to do an asymmetrical opening (to easily see which way it fits!), and to cut inwards at an angle, to prevent the lid from falling into the pumpkin later.
Applying Your Pattern
- Print your design out on paper. Before getting started, hold the paper against the pumpkin to make sure your design fits well.
- Trim excess paper from around the design as much as possible, while still leaving an inch or so border. This will allow you to tape the design on, without taping over the design.
- Cut a few snips inward from the outer edge, but not cutting into the design. This will help you mold the paper to the foam pumpkin.
- Position the paper on the pumpkin, folding and/or mashing the outer edges down to form-fit. Tape around the outer edge of the pumpkin. I like to use painter’s tape, as it won’t leave a residue when you remove it later.
- Use a pin, pen, or the “pokey tool” from your pumpkin carving set to poke through the lines of the design, into your pumpkin. I like to do this slightly outside the lines, in the direction of whatever is being cut / shaved off.
Establishing Your Borders
- Remove your pattern. Check to make sure your whole design has been transferred to the pumpkin.
- Using a SHARP craft knife, trace along your design marks. Be sure to get down a bit, but not all the way through the foam.
- Once you’ve traced all of your design lines with the knife, use the very tip of the knife to draw another line just outside the original line - about ¼" or so away. This one only needs to go deep enough to cut though the papery orange coating on the pumpkin.
- As you get a section done (both lines cut), slip the point of your blade under the orange coating, and pull it up to remove it. I used the blade for this - sometimes just pulling the coating off, sometimes cutting a bit deeper (the spots I knew would be carved away).
- Continue lining and removing paper all the way around your design, so there’s a clear border around each are that will remain orange.
”Shaving” the Foam
- Once all the designs are isolated, you can use one of the shaving tools (pictured) to gently rub off / loosen the orange coating in the areas you want cleared of it. I just gently dragged it across the parts to remove - in a back and forth fashion - until it came loose.
- Once the areas to be “shaved” are clear of orange coating, you’re ready to shave it. Sort of.
As I quickly found out, The texture of the foam used means that using the same techniques as you would for the real pumpkin can easily result in chunks of foam getting pulled up / pulled out... and not necessarily in the way you’d be looking to.
After a LOT of fussing around with the same carving tools I use for real pumpkins, I gave up and went to a single tool - the same really old, REALLY dull X-acto-type knife I used to do the edging.
I used the knife at an angle to cut away chunks of foam, creating a 3D effect.
... and then I put a light inside to see how it looks, and realized I needed to cut a lot deeper to make any kind of a difference, AND would need to do a lot of complete cutaways to get the look I wanted.
Anyway. Behold, my very first (sort of-) shaved fake pumpkin ever:
The carved foam pumpkin, as it looked when I decided I was done with it.
... Well, that’s terrifying... and not in a way I was aiming for, LOL!
How to Carve a Foam Pumpkin
Looking to carve a more old-school design, rather than hassle with shaving... but also want to keep it around for a while?
Carve a foam pumpkin!
Getting Started
Much like with shaving a foam pumpkin, you’re going to want to get your design transferred to the pumpkin surface.
In this case, I decided to do a pi symbol - pumpkin pi, har har!
First, I printed off the image I wanted, at the size I wanted:
Then I trimmed the paper down close-ish to the design, cut slits in it, and taped it to the surface, using painters tape:
Then I used a sharp point to transfer the edge of the design through the paper, to the pumpkin surface:
Once I’d gone all the way around, I removed the paper to check that the whole design transferred.
Carving Your Design
Preheat your hot knife.
Use the hot knife to cut the top off the pumpkin. As with real pumpkins, I like to cut it in an asymmetrical way, angling the knife inward as I cut.
In sections, use the hot knife to cut away the parts of the pumpkin to be removed.
Getting around tight corners can be tricky, so I’ll approach it by cutting multiple angled sections out, until it leaves a fairly open section, and is more a matter of smoothing it out.
Once you’ve got all the sections cut out, give it a once over, and smooth out any sections you’re not happy with.
Tah Dah!
Pop a little battery operated light (DO NOT USE A REAL CANDLE WITH A FOAM PUMPKIN!) In it, and you’re good to go!
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I am the proud owner of three of Alex's carved pumpkins. They stay up in my office all year (they're not real pumpkins). Great advice on how to do this with the real thing - GREAT tip about soaking the pumpkins!
Awesome! What are your carves of?
I'm doing a demonstration speech on how to carve pumpkins, have any advice or tips on how I can make my speech outstanding? (:
Hrm... I am SO the wrong person to ask about public speaking 🙁
Should the tub be warm or room temperature water? Any other tips to help the pumpkin keep longer?