Thanksgiving Pumpkin Carving-Joint Post!

Pumpkin carving doesn’t have to just be for Halloween! 

Today’s post is so much fun because it is a joint post with my Fav-o-rite blogger ever!  Pam from Gingerbread Snowflakes!  I LOVE Pam!  I don’t remember how we “met”.  However, do you guys know the book or movie series, Anne of Green Gables?  Well, if you do you will understand when I say I feel like Pam and I are kindred spirits! 

Everything on her blog inspires me so!  I swear, everything on there inspires and intrigues me, it is as if she writes them just for me!  To the point that I immediately stop what I am doing and make the project from her post!  Remember my aluminum butterflies, yup it happened with that post (and by the way it totally saved my strawberries!).  I saw Pam’s soda can butterfly mobile and was hooked!  Recently her magnetic advent calendar had me printing it out as I read it!  Children in my life are already working on coloring up their own versions and they will give them to their families at the end of November!  But even more, we email back and forth and she is so wise and caring and inspires me even more!  Also, the bond between her and her Daughter reminds me of mine with my Mom!  Do you see why I love her so?! 

Pam and I both came up with our own versions of mini carved pumpkin candles.  Go check out her version and her post!!  Then, scroll through the rest of her site.  You will not be sorry!
These mini carved pumpkin candles will be so much fun for Thanksgiving!  They look so pretty in the day, but as your festivities take you into the night these fun pumpkin decorations will add the perfect ambiance to your gathering!

Super cute as place holders, right?


Or even down your table as center pieces!

See how that little light even adds ambiance during the day?


On the back side of my pumpkins I also carved out some words.  That way these are cute from every angle, and it adds just the right thoughts to the day.  I carved the words using my daughter’s polymer clay tools.

I also tried using an apple corer and that worked, though I could not make as straight of lines.  I used my drill a lot (notice the white pumpkins with holes?).  I’ve never used my drill with carving before and I have to say I loved it.  I also loved the look the polymer clay tools made in carving the words.


I have to tell you the story behind this fun venture with Pam of Gingerbread Snowflakes! 

I have tried for years, to grow my own pumpkins for carving at Halloween.  I’ve not been successful.  Two years ago I had major pumpkin vines!  Seriously so amazing.  But NO pumpkins.  Nada!  Finally one tiny pumpkin started growing.  I so wanted to carve that sucker up for Halloween but it was super tiny and still green at Halloween.  So, I let it grow until Thanksgiving.  I did pick that pumpkin for Thanksgiving. 
I was telling Pam about this and how I was determined to carve up a Thanksgiving Jack-O-Lantern.  That’s when Pam came up with the brilliant idea to use tiny pumpkins, and carve them up for Thanksgiving.  Although instead of  Jack-O-Lanterns make up pretty designs for the Thanksgiving table.  I LOVE the way Pam thinks!  I was more than excited to jump on this band wagon.  We decided to do this as a joint post.  See, I told you she was brilliant!

I am going to be baking up all the rest of my mini pumpkins thanks to this delightful post of Pam’s!  Did you know you can eat them?  I knew you could eat the pie ones, and the bigger ones (we bake meals in the larger ones).  But I just didn’t realize you could do this with the mini pumpkins.  How cute will an individual bowl that is a mini pumpkin to eat be?  My kids will LOVE it.  I’m thinking this will be a new tradition for me.  Nov 1st I will bake these beauties up for an after school snack to kick off the Thanksgiving holiday! 

Now go out and get some mini pumpkins and add these to your own Thanksgiving table!

Thanks, Pam, for doing this project with me!  So much fun and I love how it turned out!

Rebecca

PS I have to have full disclosure here.  Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  Obviously these were done now, a week before thanksgiving.  And pumpkin carving is usually a Halloween thing.  My kids were carving with me and while we did we were listening to Christmas music.  Yeah, that’s just the way I roll sometimes.  I love all of the holidays and loved smushing them all together a bit!

Even more full disclosure:  Yes, I do notice that I spelled thankful wrong on one of my mini pumpkins.  Do you notice I corrected it with changing the last l to a !  ?  Yeah, breaking that word up just made me feel it needed to be “full”.  I was just going to photoshop the second l out of the picture, but then ful was not centered!  Argh!
This bothered me.  I couldn’t remember if I ever spelled it correctly.  So I read back through a few of my thankful posts.  Thankfully (see, here I can use 2 l’s) I do know how to spell it and have spelled it correctly.  So, why, when I am carving the word up, do I choose then to misspell it?  Just for kicks and giggles I guess!

Pumpkin Carving Option

With Halloween coming around, many of us tackle the tradition of carving pumpkins.  I have always enjoyed carving them...or so I thought.  My jack-o-lanterns have never been great creations of art and so this year I decided to tackle something a little more complex.  I even went out and bought a special Pumpkin-Carving Dremel tool from some hardware store.  I spent hours scouring over the internet to find the PERFECT design.  

Then I started carving the pumpkin.  Not only was the dremel tool a bust (I'm sure it works great for some people) but I realized that I lack the patience to carve an elaborate pumpkin.  So I settled upon one of the patterns I had deemed too "EASY" for me to undertake.  Turns out it was the PERFECT way to go.   

I LOVE this Jack-o-Lantern.  I only had to cut out the windows and the moon, and then I painted in the house.  SO easy!  Did I mention that I love to paint?  Much more so that I like to carve, so this way I got an elegant design without spending all those frustrating hours carving it out.  And I like that it looks cool during the daytime as well!  Looks like this is how I will be carving pumpkins from here on out.

 

Erika