Guest Post: How to Carve a Mockingjay Pumpkin by Bookalicious Pam!

When I started soliciting guest posts for Fright Fest, Pam from Bookalicious was one of the first to volunteer. With Halloween literally just around the corner, now is the perfect time to carve your pumpkin! So, Pam’s going to teach all of us how to carve Mockingjay pumpkin!

How to cut the Mockingjay Pumpkin

What you need:

1: A pumpkin. Find one with a fairly flat area. This will make it easier to apply the template.

2: A pumpkin carving kit. Make sure it contains a saw for fine details.

3: A printout of the Mockingjay template

4: A roll of transparent tape

5: A pair of scissors

6: A healthy dose of patience

First, gut the pumpkin. You can make the carving easier by scraping the inside of the pumpkin to make the walls a bit thinner. Don’t make them too thin though.

Next we are going to apply the template. It’s easiest when you don’t try to apply the entire printout to the pumpkin but instead cut it out. Leave a margin around it of about an inch. Then apply the template to the pumpkin with tape. Use a lot of it to make sure it’s not going to fall off halfway through the carving process.

Once you’re confident the template is attached well you can start carving. It’s always best to sort of work your way from the inside to the outside when doing this. Therefore we’re going to punch holes for the eyes of the bird first. Trying to do this when you’re done carving may cause you to break the now fragile pumpkin wall. We have applied numbering to the template as a suggestion for the order in which you cut out the various pieces.

With certain parts you may need to improvise a bit by cutting a bit wider at first and later on cut some more in order to prevent the narrow bits from breaking off. The single most important thing is something my dad always told me when I was little when sawing figures out of thin plywood: Let the SAW do the SAWING. Never ever apply pressure or try to rush things or you’ll break something off and you’ll have to start all over again with a new pumpkin.

When you’re done carving make sure you take a picture of your work and send it to info@bookalicio.us and it will be put on Bookalicious on Halloween.

Have fun with the carving and Happy Halloween!