The Last of Pumpkins...

I just wanted to cover one more aspect of pumpkins before moving on to November. One of the things that is most fun about pumpkins this time of year is the carving. Growing up, pumpkins were all the same. No one thought to carve them any differently than the triangle eyes, nose, and missing teeth.

All that has changed. Through the years, carving pumpkins has become an art form. No longer do you need to cut all the way through the skin and insides -- you just cut through deep enough so that the light glows through. It's amazing what they come up with now.

Along with that, not only have the carvings taken on a whole new vista, but there is a lot of painting on the pumpkins as well. It is basically a whole new canvas for the art enthusiast to explore. There is carving as well that is more of a sculpture, and some of that work is amazing -- the pumpkin almost looks like butter, the color of it. This particular artist, Scott Cummins, has a site where you can view his work from each year. Go check it out -- he's amazing.

For this blog though, I wanted to focus only on the carving aspects. If you are interested in doing more than the simple carving of a pumpkin, there are several ways to do this. You can buy kits in the stores, or you can go online and find lots of patterns and suggestions. One site that looked pretty good for learning was Spook Master. They have a pumpkin carving 101 class that goes through the basics and explains things I never understood. Like I said...I have always been more of the triangle cut pumpkin person. (I can hear it now, but isn't she supposed to be artistic? Doesn't she paint? -- that only pertains to that aspect of my life. In many other ways I'm really not very artistic at all. It drives me crazy! ;) )


One of the best places to see examples of carved pumpkins is the Syracuse Pumpkin Walk. This is rapidly becoming an annual tradition in this part of Utah. My mother-in-law lives right next to the park where they hold it, and this year she and her husband took their great-grandchildren for a tour. It was an evening they all loved. She mentioned that it's become quite the popular event, making the wait and line over an hour long...so perhaps it's only for the die hard enthusiasts. This year they had over 1000 pumpkins -- all donated by Black Island Farms, the same one that had a corn maze I highlighted a couple of weeks ago.

I wanted to showcase some of the pumpkins that were displayed. Hopefully next year you'll have a chance to go see them in person. I always forget until afterward -- but perhaps you can make a mental note for mid-October. You won't regret it.


While some of the pumpkins have cartoon or familiar figures as their theme, some of them are quite startling.


Some also were cut more traditionally, as in this welcoming spot -- but they were still humorous and (as far as I'm concerned) take talent to do.

But this one is purely simple lines and flowing with the light. It's my favorite. Which one do you like best? You might have a contest of your own next year and see which one comes out on top.

And on a side note: The new Yourldsneighborhood radio is up! It's great fun, go check it out for clean an uplifting music 24/7!

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My Mailbox

Last year we had an issue with kids throwing pumpkins at our mailbox. I don't know how many of you suffer from the same disease we do here with regards to no brains and pumpkins, but it's a yearly illness that routinely takes out the mailboxes. Sometimes they get tired of waiting and use a baseball bat -- they've even been known to use a car. But this time, it was a pumpkin. We weren't the only ones struck by the onset of the disease, there were several other mailboxes that suffered a similar fate.

Well -- it was sad news. We had just purchased a new mailbox to replace our old rusting metal one. This new one was black (which wasn't my first choice, but when you are looking for cheap, white is usually more expensive.) and my hubby insisted I paint our name on it. I humored him and painted it up, adding my traditional ladybug, and all. He proudly mounted it on the post we share with our neighbor, and we were happy with life.

Sure enough -- this was the same mailbox that was smashed with a pumpkin. It hit our neighbors as well, but our box took the brunt of it. It took some of the paint off where I'd painted our name, and took the door off, as well as knocking it off the post.

Our first impulse was not to replace it, I mean, I didn't want to keep painting on mailboxes -- what if that was the reason for the pumpkin? (grin) So, we put the old metal one back out there and hoped it would last a while longer.

Surprise, surprise, we found one to replace the black one at a yard sale or DI, I can't quite remember which. The point was, it was like $2 and a little more solid that the other one we'd purchased. Hubby informs me that I need to paint this one too.

This was about six months ago.

That's right...the thing has been sitting in our house, waiting for it's application of paint before it took it's place beside the curb. Well, finally last Saturday, I painted it. I used the new paint hubby gave me for Christmas -- water soluble oil paint.

Now, I usually don't like oil paint. It's messy (I'm a messay painter, usually getting paint on me, clothes, furniture, easel, etc.), the clean up really smells, and it takes FOREVER to dry. But when we found this water soluble (or in other words, clean up is with soap and water) I was excited. There's nothing quite like oil paint for mixing colors and getting a smooth effect. I had forgotten all about it until Saturday.

By the time I was finished, I wanted to go paint something else. I had a very small sampling of colors, as it was a beginning kit, but I was able to do everything I wanted with it, and with a small amount of paint. I'm used to working with acrylic, and I generally go through tubes of the stuff. (This is why they talk about starving artist...supplies are not cheap.)

This is what the side looks like:


And this is what I did on the front:


I thought it turned out rather well, myself. It reminded me alot of tole painting. When I first moved to Utah, my foster mom (which later became my MOM) took me to tole painting classes. She was always doing some kind of crafty or painting thing -- she even took the woodshop class at the local high school, making hope chests for my sisters and a bedside table for me. Anyway, I loved that class. I've pretty much forgotten the real technique, but some of it came back just working with the paint. It was wonderful. sigh.

So now the paint has finally dried...(it only took four days) and I can tell my hubby to stick it out on the stand. I'm just glad it has a few months before the worry of pumpkinitis hits again.

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