Green Halloween: Pumpkin Carving Tips



Pumpkins are probably the best of all green Halloween decorations:  they’re 100% organic, they’re the perfect color for Halloween, and they are nutritious too.  Our favorite pumpkin decorations are Jack-O-Lanterns.  Every year we set aside an evening for making them.  Here are a few tips for carving your Halloween pumpkins:

1) Line your work area with old newspapers.  This makes cleanup easy, and allows you to reuse any old newspaper you have laying around.

2) For help with making the faces on your Halloween pumpkins, go through your kitchen cabinets to find just the right shapes.  Sometimes the bottom of a drinking glass, pepper grinder, or spice container is the perfect shape for an eye, or a mouth.  Just trace the bottom of the container right onto the pumpkin, and carve.

3) For more complicated designs, draw them on paper first, and cut out the designs.  Attach to your pumpkin with toothpicks or tape, and rub on a little cornstarch or baby powder.  When you remove the paper pattern, the powder remains, giving you a guide for cutting.

4) No-carve pumpkins:  Let small children use up scraps of old fabric, buttons, or shapes cut from colorful cardboard packaging by gluing on their own pumpkin designs.

5) What to do with your pumpkins after the carving is done?  For a nutritious snack, you can make roasted pumpkin seeds, or for a sweet treat, make pumpkin pie squares.  Also, used up Jack-O-Lanterns make great composting material.

Related posts:

  1. Green Halloween Tips- Part II
  2. Green Halloween Decorations: Soy Candles
  3. Last Minute Green Halloween Ideas!
  4. Homemade Halloween Costumes
  5. Green Halloween Ideas

by Traci Latoz
Oct 18, 2008 in Green Home, Green Living, Green Tips, Halloween
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2 comments

1 Halloween Snack: Roasted Pumpkin Seeds — Cooking and Blogging { 10.20.08 at 10:03 am }

[...] you do, don’t throw away the pumpkin seeds leftover from carving Halloween pumpkins!  Roasted pumpkin seeds are a delicious and nutritious Halloween treat, and they’ll stay [...]

2 Green Halloween Tips- Part II Green Vaccine { 10.23.08 at 8:20 am }

[...] my last post about Halloween pumpkins, I forgot to offer some tips on how to light them.  If you want to steer clear of paraffin-based [...]

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