Official Jack-O-Lantern thread

[Slim]

So I'm a pretty huge fan of pumpkin carving. I take it pretty seriously and have a lot of fun. Living in Arizona, jack-o-lanterns tend to melt about a day after you carve them, so I haven't carved mine this year yet. I'll post below some of my past creations. Usually I can do a google search to find a good pattern (I'm not artistic enough to come up with these on my own).

If anyone has a good Utah Utes pattern they'd like to share, I would appreciate it. I have a good Ute friend in my class for whom I'd like to carve a pumkin this year.







Here they are last year in front of my house with my son taking a picture of me taking a picture. You can guess which one my wife carved. She's more of a traditionalist.




Mickey and I.

[TripletDaddy]

Slim, your jack o lanterns totally dominate your wife's jack o lantern.

I need an oddball pattern to carve, too. I like this thread, cool idea.

[chrisrenrut]

We had the granddaughters over last year to carve jack-o-lanterns. Nothing fancy, but we let them draw the design and then their dads carved them out. The 12 year old wanted one that's face was happy on the left side and scary on the right side. It turned out like this:


I joked out loud that it looked like her jack-o-lantern had a stroke. Not a very funny joke, but it was even worse in my case because I didn't even think about her mom (my daughter-in-law) having a stroke and being near death just the year before.

Fortunately she fully recovered and after feigned anger, laughed at my embarrassment. It felt like one of the Southwest "Wanna get away" commercials.

[Scott R Nelson]

Not exactly an original idea, but I did carve it entirely myself.

[TripletDaddy]

Did my first one last night. One of the Puffies wanted a Scooby jack-o-lantern.

So I obliged.

I am like Slim...i get into carving the old calabasa. We are doing more tonight. Can't wait!

[cougjunkie]

Wow some of those are really good. I go old school with the triangle eyes and jagged teeth for the mouth.

You guys have some skills.

[FN Phat]

Surfah gets into the carving pumpkins and is damn good at it as well. He should post some pics of his. I am pretty sure he has one of a GA.

[Surfah]

Here is one I did back in '07. It's supposed to be Mitt Romney. Looked better lit up. I did it for the ward trunk or treat.



We did pumpkins Monday for FHE. I filled requests for a cat and then Hello Kitty on a white pumpkin for my 4 year old. I'll have to get some pics of those. Hello Kitty came out well.

[TripletDaddy]

Here is one I did back in '07. It's supposed to be Mitt Romney. Looked better lit up. I did it for the ward trunk or treat.



We did pumpkins Monday for FHE. I filled requests for a cat and then Hello Kitty on a white pumpkin for my 4 year old. I'll have to get some pics of those. Hello Kitty came out well.

I, too, enjoyed watching mitt get lit up.

Who let the dogs out?!

[Art Vandelay]

Cleaning pumpkins is my least favorite holiday tradition, until my wife makes me kill and gut a turkey for Thanksgiving. I feel like I'm some kind of animal or alien obgyn. The white squash thing is a pumpkin, he found the only one in a gigantic pumpkin patch, we left it uncarved.

[FN Phat]

Cleaning pumpkins is my least favorite holiday tradition, until my wife makes me kill and gut a turkey for Thanksgiving. I feel like I'm some kind of animal or alien obgyn. The white squash thing is a pumpkin, he found the only one in a gigantic pumpkin patch, we left it uncarved.

My mom used to roast the pmpkin seeds and add some rock salt to them. Still one of my favorite holiday goodies.

[TripletDaddy]

Did two more last night, bringing my total up to 5 this week.

Going to do 3 more today....one at work and 2 more at home. I love carving pumpkins!

Last night's were fairly simple but look cool lit up.

pumpkin king



Glowing skull

[Surfah]

Cleaning pumpkins is my least favorite holiday tradition, until my wife makes me kill and gut a turkey for Thanksgiving. I feel like I'm some kind of animal or alien obgyn. The white squash thing is a pumpkin, he found the only one in a gigantic pumpkin patch, we left it uncarved.

I don't mind it so much. In fact when I got home from work on Monday I cleaned out all of the pumpkins for the family so all they had to do was carve them for FHE. The secret to a good pumpkin is shaving the inner walls to about an inch thick.

[mtnbiker]

I kept forgetting to post on this thread. Might be too late, but here are some pics from past family pumpkin carvings. They
look better at full size.

Monster from Where the Wild Things Are


Ghost, cyclops, cannibal, wolf


Scary faces, spider, Pac Man (4 pumpkins in a row), Thundercats


Mice, faces, moon & stars

[Drunk Tank]

Not mine but thought it was cool....




Then there is Ray Villafane... http://www.villafanestudios.com/pumpkins.htm