The Coolest Pumpkin That Wasn't

I have this thing for pumpkin carving – it’s one of my favorite things to do. Pumpkin carving and cookie decorating. I like to take these things to the extreme – as my brother and sister-in-law know all too well. A few years ago when I was living with them, Rachel made sugar cookies – I forced us to decorate them exactly as they appeared on the Williams Sonoma cookie cutter tin they came in. This meant we had to hand pipe all of the frosting on to every single cookie. The elves had to have stripes on their tights! This took like twelve hours and the cookies were so cool that I don’t think people wanted to eat them. Needless to say, I’ve never been able to get them to do this with me again. We sort of tried it up north a few years ago with a tin of zoo animal cookies, but my 8 year old cousin didn’t cooperate – his cookies were like Jackson Pollack paintings – even more yummy than mine because of all of the extra frosting.

Anyway, pumpkin carving is like cookie decorating. I can sit there for hours, literally. I usually go for the patterns that you put on the pumpkin, but this year I tried something new. A few weeks ago I came upon an issue of Ladies’ Home Journal that had the latest and greatest pumpkin carving ideas. Bas relief pumpkin carving with a u-gouge linoleum cutter. Granted the article said to get a practice pumpkin, but how hard could this possibly be? I went in search of the u-gouge tool, a little confused as to how you could possibly cut linoleum with this thing. Little did I know there is more than one kind of linoleum. The people at home depot tried to tell me to just cut the linoleum with a pair of scissors or an exacto blade – and they looked at me like I was crazy when I told them that I actually planned to carve a pumpkin with a tool that cuts linoleum. One of my friends told me to be careful not to cut the pumpkin in half which I just thought was silly – there is no way you could cut the pumpkin in half with this thing. Anyway, I finally found the tool at a craft supply store. This was when I discovered there is more than one kind of linoleum and this tool looks like something that would be used for soap or wood carving.

Anyway, I guess this is the latest craze in pumpkin carving, but I couldn’t find any stencils to use so I had to make my own. The short of it is, 3.5 hours later, my back hurt and I was bleeding. I have two half carved pumpkins, two pumpkins I just don’t feel like carving, and a useless u-gouge linoleum cutter. This pumpkin would have been so cool, but even I don’t have the patience to sit there and do this. I should probably stick to cookie decorating – if I can find someone to help me who is willing to do it my way!