Pumpkin Carving Craft for Halloween

Halloween is a festival my daughter waits all year long. Apart from dressing into some interesting outfits each year she loves decorating pumpkin. Halloween is not a festival we used to celebrate growing up but now it has become a family favorite one. If you want to know more about Halloween click here. Like last couple of years we have made pumpkin craft this year's Halloween too. With the new addition to our family( my cute little boy) I thought we might not be able to carve one this time. Thanks to the enthusiasm of my 4 and a half yr old daughter and my husband, we finally did it. This time I also contributed to carving. My daughter is the happiest person in the house once it was done. We had the pleasure of the presence of my parents. My dad took pictures and my 2 month old son was in the audience too. Here's how we did it. 1. Design selection- by my daughter. 2. Cut the lid. 3. Clean the inside using scraping tool.

4. Tape the template. 5. Trace using crayon. 6. Take out template and carve using tool. 7. Place a battery operated light inside the pumpkin and place the lid.

The above pictures are self explanatory, however if any of you want to know more please feel free to ask.

Note-Since sharp tools are involved Adults supervision and participation is a must. It is advisable to use the tools meant for pumpkin carving. It makes the task super easy and it is safer too. For tutorials of other pumpkin crafts we have already done click here.

Spooky Scary Village DIY Halloween Decoration

This year Halloween was extra special as my daughter and my husband were all so excited and crafty about it. Really appreciate the effort made by my crafty daughter and hubby. I was all too busy preparing for The Craft festival I have to participate in. Though I did provide a helping hand here and there like handing the scotch tape or finding the paper or crayon.
It was fun to watch her talking to the Pumpkin Bat,Mommy's Pumpkin, Incredibles Pumpkin,Spider Pumpkin, Ghost, Scary village house (made from lego). She is reading stories to them since it was put on display. Halloween is over and she still wants her scary village and the people pumpkins that live there. It is going to stay for a while looks like.

Salient features:

-We have used the faux spider web for the first time. It was a learning experience to figure out how exactly it will become a web.

-All the bugs, bats etc from kids tube mini bugs collection (National Geography) were put to good use and they hang really well on the web.

-All toilet paper roll tube crafts made good decoration.

-Crafts done by my daughter at her friend's house made good deco too. You see the scary village has to have a tree (again a preschooler's imagination).
-Mega Blocks for making a scary tower.
-Lego blocks for making a cute little Ghost.
-Paper Crafts made at Preschool(Pumpkin, Owl, Fall wreath) all were there.
-Pumpkin paper Lantern.
-Dried and silk fall leaves.
-The different levels for better display were created using different size of cardboard boxes and covered with a halloween theme black and orange table cover.
-Lots of Scarecrow because we need lots as we need to scare more.

-Paper silhouttes for the window decoration of a really scary village made with black construction paper, white crayon and hand cut foams in the shape of bat, ghost, pumpkin.

-Paper Silhouttes of bat and witch too.Added later as it is incomplete without witch.

- The best an innovative idea I must say was using Humidifier to give the haunted effect from colored smoke. Covered the humidifier with white garbage bag and made eyes with foam stickers, toilet paper roll to make a chimney and the color from the disco ball added the haunted feel to it.

-All trick or treat containers found a place in this scary village too. Whether it is Green Monster from Happy meal from Mcdonalds or the famous pumpkin container.

- And 2 days before Halloween we decided, we should definitely have a carved pumpkin and here you go ..a smily pumpkin (Pumpkin has to be happy) was carved to welcome all our cute and scary guests for the little Halloween Party we had. We used a camping light lantern to light it as the LED tea light we had were not giving enough light and we were really running out of time to get one with more power.

And so on...many more little toys, incomplete yarn doll, cats etc.

I guess we will remember Halloween 2011 for a long time to come. Hope you all had a wonderful time decoration and trick or treating.