Spooky Veg* Night 2010

Aside from Christmas and his birthday, Halloween is Alex’s favourite occasion. It’s quite good that the NCS at Bisley has its firework display around this time as well, as it really gets the little lad excited.

This year he had his first go at one of the fairground stalls at Bisleys display. It was one where you throw a ball and if you hit the object you win it. £2 for one go (in aid of the UK rifle team)…. We paid our £2… Alex (now 4 1/2yrs old) took aim, threw the ball… and won a toy. Great shot – square on!

The fireworks were brilliant – if a little on the short side, but made up for in sheer style and music. I don’t have any worthy photo’s, but hey… you know what fireworks look like by now…

2009

Anyway, that was yesterday! Today is Halloween and the time of year when I DO not want to see another pumpkin for at least another year… because it’s the time of year when Alex sets me a carving challenge! Last year was The Mini…

This year he chose Spongebob Squarepants. He didn’t want scary pumpkins because he thought they might come alive like in Monsters versus Aliens…

So… Spongebob, Patrick and Gary got carved….

 

Spongebob

 

Patrick

Gary

The rest of the photo’s

*P.S: I know Pumpkins are fruits, but Scary Fruit sounded a bit un-PC….

Mind you… Scary Veg isn’t much better….

Scary Fruit time

I have never carved a pumpkin before …

My Dad taught me that if I was going to do anything, then I should always do my best.

So… when Alex asked me to carve a Mini pumpkin I figured I’d do the best I could… Lets face it, it’s just veg, knife, picture…

I figured you might like a guide on how I went at it – You never know, it might help you!

First I tried to hand draw something Mini-like…

My awesome artistic talent shines like a lump of coal…

Not great….

The idea was to draw a Mini then shade out the areas I’d eventually cut from the scary veg!

So… onto Google and find a good Mini front view…

Make screen size to suit pumpkin… then trace…

Shade main features… cut out… remembering not to cut all the way around or the Mini will fall out!

Now… scoop out pumpkin.

When cutting the top remember to cut it like a wedge, and not straight down, or the lid will fall in!

I then pinned the template to the veg and traced the shape onto the pumpkin using a pin… like a giant dot to dot.

Cutting the smaller parts first whilst the pumpkin is still pretty rigid reduced potential breakage.

For fine details I just cut away the skin, but didn’t remove the flesh from under it. (like the tyre treads)

I also cut the skin around the edge where the main car was attached.

The MINI name at the top also helped hold the main car cut out in place and add to the shape.

Once lit you can see that the treads show up well – even though I only shaved the skin off there!

The end result is a very happy little Alex!

(…and a quite chuffed Dad! – Not bad for a first effort!)