How to Carve a Pumpkin

One of the most effective and satisfying homemade Halloween decorations is carving your own jack-o’-lantern pumpkin. Nothing looks quite as spooky when the lights are turned down as the orange glowing face!

Although kids love to help with this, be warned that you will need to use a sharp knife to carve the pumpkin so it’s best that an adult does this. However, so that the kids are not left out, a great job for them is drawing the template that we will use as the face.

Here’s what you’ll need

• A large pumpkin
• A sharp knife
• A serving spoon
• A skewer
• An A4 piece of paper
• A black marker pen
• A tea light
• A box of matches

Here’s what you’ll need to do:

1. Take a large pumpkin and using the sharp knife, cut off the crown at the top. Keep this for later.

2. Using the serving spoon, scoop out the pumpkin seeds and the fibres and discard. This is a good job to give the kids.

3. On an A4 piece of paper, draw the template of the face using the black marker pen. You will need to draw two eyes, a nose and a mouth.

4. Hold the A4 Paper closely to the pumpkin and using the skewer prick through the pumpkin so that you can see the outline of the face with the dots.

5. Using the sharp knife, carve out the pieces of the eyes, the nose and the mouth

6. Place the tea light at the bottom of the pumpkin and light with the matches.

7. Make sure the lights are turned down to enjoy the spooky effect.