How to Carve Craft Pumpkins For a No Mess Jack O Lantern For This Year and Many to Come

Are you done with the pumpkin carving yet? No! Can’t stand the mess? Here’s a pumpkin crafts idea for you. Use a plastic craft pumpkin to carve your jack o lantern this year. No Mess! No Fuss! And boy did it come out cute. You can do it whenever you get the time and best of all, when the holiday is done you can pack it away and display it again next year. So, you want to give it a try? Great! There are some big differences between carving a real pumpkin and a craft pumpkin. Here’s what I did.

I found a couple of nice plastic pumpkins at my local arts and crafts supply store called craft pumpkins. They had orange ones and white ones in several different sizes. They looked pretty realistic too. They really weren’t very much more expensive than the real ones either (just a dollar or so). Also, they’re light weight and easy to work with.

There are a few advantages to carving a craft pumpkin over the real thing. First is that you don’t have the mess of scooping out the slimy insides like with a real pumpkin. Second you don’t have to worry about it rotting on your doorstep and attracting those flies. In fact, you can store it away and display it again next year. Overall, it was just easier to work with and I loved how light it is. You don’t have to fight with it so much when you are trying to carve it. And best of all you can paint you stencil onto the craft pumpkin or carve it.

However, carving a craft pumpkin is a little different from carving a real pumpkin. You’ll need to cut out the stencil islands and trace it onto the pumpkin instead of using a punch tool. The punch tool is not very effective in penetrating the plastic. Trim the excess paper from around the outside of the stencil with scissors making sure to leave at least a ½ inch border on all sides for the tape. Line up the pattern on the pumpkin and tape both sides of the stencil, top and bottom. To tape the corners, you may need to crease the stencil. Depending on the roundness of the pumpkin, this may distort your design so try to make the creases where the pattern will be the least distorted. Trace the stencil onto the pumpkin surface and remove.

Use a sharp, triangular blade X-Acto or craft knife instead of a carving saw. A smooth up and down saw motion is best to keep control of the blade. Only use gentle pressure to avoid stressing and breaking the tool or the pumpkin. It’s best to start in the center of the design and work your way out. You may need to rotate the pumpkin in your lap to keep the side that you are cutting closer to your hand. To cut sharp corners, remove the saw blade and re-insert it at the new angle. Use your finger to push the cut pieces out from the inside of the pumpkin. Cut large areas into smaller ones for easier removal.

Also, the plastic pumpkins are flammable so you need to use a battery operated tea light candle inside or install a night light kit. Instead of cutting a lid on top, cut a circle in the bottom to sit the pumpkin over the light source.

Here’s another idea. Instead of carving the pumpkin, why not paint the stencil on the pumpkin? It’s much easier and looks pretty good. You could use black paint or even get creative and put in some different colors. Just line up and tape the stencil as described above for carving but use a stencil brush or foam brush to apply paint. I always recommend a dabbing up and down motion when painting a stencil pattern because a back and forth motion pushes paint under the stencil, smearing your painted image. Carefully remove the stencil without dragging it over the wet paint.

The carving project took me about 30 minutes and it was so much easier than carving the real thing. Painting is even quicker. As far as Halloween Crafts and pumpkin crafts projects go, this was one of my favorites. Happy Stenciling!

Hi! I’m Penny Vedrenne. I’m on a mission to get people excited about using stencils. Sounds corny, doesn’t it? Well, if you knew how many artistic items you can make with stencils you’d feel the same way. They aren’t just for walls. In fact, if stencils can be useful in carving out a creative pumpkin design then there must be thousands of other ways that stencils can decorate our lives. It’s my job to come up with as many ways as possible to be creative with stencils and then to let you know exactly how to do it too! Visit me at Design From Penny (http://www.designsfrompenny.com) for some of my great stencil designs and don’t miss the Blogs that are full of ideas and information.

I hope I inspired you to explore the many ways that you can be an artist with stencils. They are easy and once you get the hang of it you truly can be an artist. For all the how to you can stand on stenciling, please visit my educational web site All-About-Stencils (http://www.all-about-stencils.com). You’ll find the complete instructions on stenciling starting at the very beginning and graduating to decorating furniture and even creating art prints with stencils. Again, you’ll be surprised at how much art you can create with stencils.

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