Pumpkin Party and My Pinterest Challenge Entry

Last Friday I spent the evening over at The House on Adams Drive at the 2nd Annual Pumpkin Carving Party. I got over there early to help Ali get things ready. We started by gutting our pumpkins so we could make some toasted pumpkin seeds to munch on while everyone was carving.









Just a little tip for next year, I found it so much easier to just scoop the seeds out and let the slimy stuff run through your fingers (kinda like running your fingers through your hair, but instead of hair it's pumpkin slime) that way you don't have as much pumpkin guts to clean out of your seeds later. Once we got the seeds started I taped my template to my pumpkin. This is where my Pinterest Challenge entry comes in. I saw this little cutie pie last week or so and thought I would make one of my face.

Well, I grew impatient trying to make a template of my face, but I knew I could just use the file for Babbs' painting to create one. (If you want to give this a shot use the link to make your own template.) Back to the pumpkin carving, here is my template taped onto my canvas ready to start carving!




But this would have to wait.... Because Ali had 6, yes 6 pumpkins to gut before everyone arrived. Needless to say we had plenty of seeds for roasting. I'd also like to do a little complaining right now, her pumpkins were freezing! They had stored them in their garage. So, here's tip #2 for you: keep your pumpkins inside your house before you carve them so your hands don't freeze while your cleaning out the guts.

Anyway, back to the party. Luckily for us, we had just finished cleaning out the last pumpkin before everyone arrived. With all our hard prep work we got to enjoy taking a few pictures while everyone else was doing the gross job of gutting their pumpkins.

Here is Ali's husband Mike concentrating real hard.




Dave consulting Justin on which Angry Bird he should carve.




I probably should have kept a better eye on what this guy was up to, more on that later.


And the 9th wheel, Maddy, with her mom Kala!



I wasn't really paying attention, so sorry to Kelly for chopping of the top of her head here. I was just trying to get this template for "Tebowing" that Mike used on one of his pumpkins. And there's a little Angry Bird right next to it (blue to be exact).



And of course I had to have someone take this one of Ali and I.






Like I said earlier, you need to keep an eye on Matt. Here is his masterpiece. He was pretty happy with himself and even shared the results with the world of Facebook immediately.




Here they are lit up once we got them home. I think mine turned out much better, don't you?




Oh, and I made some of those adorable little vampire pumpkins from Martha Stewart. They were so dang cute!



Until some asshole rabbit decided it would be a tasty snack. At least he didn't take the teeth with him.









That better? Eh, oh well. Now I know.


So to outsmart the stupid rabbits I used an empty pot that I had laying around in the back yard as a little pedestal to display my pumpkins on. You could say that's pumpkin carving tip #3.



And because this is also my Pinterest Challenge entry, here's a little comparison to the pinspiration.






What did you carve this year? A you making something for the Pinterest Challenge? Do you wish it had been on a weekend when you weren't already busy with Halloween stuff?