Halloween just isn't Halloween without Jack O'Lanterns. Below, anything and everything you need to know on the art of pumpkin carving.
1. Prepare a Pumpkin for Carving
Serious Eats' video demonstration is for true novices: "This video is for you unlucky souls who never got to carve a real pumpkin as a kid (hello jack-o-lantern face stickers!), but are now too old to admit to their friends that they don't really know how it's done."
2. Basic Pumpkin Carving for Beginners
Serious Eats' handy beginner's guide is beautifully photographed and presented in slideshow form: Everything You Need to Know to Carve a Perfect Pumpkin.
3. Advanced Pumpkin Carving
Another great slideshow from Serious Eats, but this time for the more ambitious carvers: How to Carve a Pumpkin like a Pro.
4. Carve and Preserve the Ultimate Pumpkin
Lifehacker's guide covers everything from selection to carving tools to preservation techniques.
5. Pumpkin Illumination 101
There are more options than a simple candle when it comes to Jack O'Lantern illumination. This additional guide from Lifehacker covers traditional candles, commercial LED lights, glow sticks, CFL bulbs, and more advanced options.
6.Quick and Easy Pumpkin Carving Hack
Too impatient for dinky X-acto knives? Then try MAKE's solution: "a cordless Dremel Multi-Max oscillating tool to make quick work of Mr. O'Lantern."
7. Carve a Pumpkin Using Duct Tape
Captain Molo's Instructable cleverly utilizes duct tape as a non-slip, sticky stencil.
8. Precision Pumpkin Carving
Ready for the serious stuff? Jeff, an electronics technologist at a large aeronautics corporation, demonstrates how to carve detailed images on pumpkins, like his amazing E.T. shown below.
9. 46 Free Pumpkin Carving Templates
Now that you've got the precision carving down, dive into Martha Stewart's bank of pumpkin carving template freebies.
10. Extreme (Explosive) Pumpkin Carving
Pumpkin carving is reborn. Try pumpkin pyrotechnics, power tool carving and more man-child Halloween fun over at Extreme Pumpkins.
11. Carve a Smoking Pumpkin
A simple rig of putty and incense creates this spooky effect of smoke pouring from a Jack O'Lantern's mouth.
12. Cool Pumpkin Carving Tools and Gadgets 101
Carve like a man! Akin to MAKE's dremel carving tutorial above, DIY Life recommends ditching the wimpy carving tools for some real power tools.
13. Carve a Pumpkin Using a Laser
Have access to a laser cutter? You're in luck. Scott lists tons of tips, methods and materials for undertaking such an intense project.
14. Remote Control Color Changing Pumpkin
Make your own remote control color changing pumpkin with Ian's Instructable: "Channel buttons 0-8 on the remote toggle the colors of the rainbow. Button 9 activates an 'angry pumpkin' mode that flashes a scary red strobe for a few seconds."
15. Mini Pumpkin Jack O'Lantern Army
Last but not least, and perhaps my favorite of the bunch, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has a great tutorial for making your own light-up, mini pumpkin Jack O'Lantern army.
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3 Comments
My favorite pumpkin carving is... https://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-carve-char-and-contort-creepy-miniature-jack-o-lantern-for-halloween-405655/... which I might try out this weekend.
nice. i like the idea... nice that preservation isn't an issue. why do people feel the need to instruct with sock puppets?
Maybe they believe that they won't be taken seriously, as silly as that sounds. But it's an interesting technique regardless, unless you're pupaphobic.
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