My favorite day of the year has finally come and I had so much fun carving pumpkins this year! Sticking with the Harry Potter theme (did you see Jax’s adorable Dobby costume?!), I had planned to make Mad Eye Moody and Snape pumpkins. However, my local Sprouts only carried these beautifully perfect round gourds and I faced some pattern sizing issues.
First, I had to get all set to carve. Thank goodness for my trusty Pumpkin Carving Tool Box and plastic Halloween bucket.
Oh! And the latest addition to my pumpkin carving necessities – CHECK. OUT. THIS. APRON! I got it on sale at Williams Sonoma and got so much joy putting it on today. It’s an absolute must to look like a jack-o-lantern when carving pumpkins.
So, here’s where I went wrong this year. I was so short on time to get pumpkins and with the latest heat wave rolling through, pumpkins were tough to come by. I went to Sprouts to get groceries one day and suddenly remembered I needed to get some beautiful gourds. What was missing were my printed templates. Ugh! Such a rookie mistake!
As a result, while I was prepping to carve, I realized that the Snape pattern was in no way going to fit on either pumpkin I purchased. Not helping my stress level was I needed to shrink the Mad Eye Moody by 25%. Let me say… that’s not easy. But I was up for the challenge.
This is my favorite moment… digging in!
The end of the design was giving me serious heart palpitations. The pieces were so thin due to the reduction in size and the entire design was flexing with every cut. Eeeek!
In the end, it turned out perfect and it was time to move onto my second pumpkin. As I mention, Snape wasn’t going to fit, so I picked a design that you could never go wrong with on Halloween.
Check these bad boys out! I’m so happy with how they turned out.
Now I can kick back and enjoy them for the holiday! Happy Halloween!
Check out my past creations in my Pumpkin Carving Gallery.
The Mad Eye Moody and Trick or Treat Pumpkin Carving Templates are from Zombie Pumpkins.