Believe it or not I’ve never actually carved a pumpkin before – what a sad life I have led I hear you cry! Well, this year I took matters into my own hands and carved myself a happy little pumpkin for our balcony 🙂

Having never done one before, I resorted to Pinterest and Google for some inspiration and ideas. Pinterest basically just made me wish I had a big ol’ American house with a large porch to decorate come Autumn, with dozens of painted and carved pumpkins, autumn wreaths on the front door, and comedy Halloween decorations (I’m talking puking pumpkins – how brilliant is that?!). But I brought myself back to reality and eventually found a pumpkin design that I wanted to try and emulate.I then had a quick look on YouTube to see if there were any tips and tricks to this pumpkin-carving malarkey – how do you get rid of the insides, what’s the best kind of knife to use? Etc etc..I grabbed one of our normal kitchen knives and started to cut out the top. I learned a little tip from Jessica over at The Pyreflies: make sure to cut your lid at an angle so you can rest it back on top when you’re done – if you don’t, your lid will just fall straight through! I have to say I’m very glad I read that beforehand as I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of silly thing I would do…!So off came the lid, and I sliced off the goopy bits to make sure it was smooth.The YouTube video I watched said to use a spoon to get the innards out, so that’s exactly what I did. Basically just scoop out as much as you can with you hands, then scrape round the edges with the spoon to get rid of all that stringy goop, until it’s nice and smooth inside.Voila!Then comes the fun part. I drew on my design just with a biro, and then proceeded to start cutting it out.I used a smaller knife for this as it was a bit more intricate. I scored the lines first, as that made it easier to cut through in more of a controlled fashion.
And there we have it!My little smiley faced pumpkin! I’m pretty proud of him if I’m honest! Don’t think I did half bad 🙂I had so much fun doing this one that I’m even tempted to do another…! I’ll be sure to let you know if I do 🙂