Pumpkin Carving Tips for Halloween

There are only four days left to get carving before Halloween.

Leisure Services Recreation Programmer Sally Herren put together Cookeville’s pumpkin carving contest and has tips for carving at home. Herren said one tip for making a perfect pumpkin, is the pumpkin itself.

“Get a pumpkin with a stem and we decided it was better if you cut the back of the pumpkin instead of the top to get all the insides out of the pumpkin,” Herren said. “Because the stem is where the pumpkin gets the moisture and so the pumpkin will last longer.”

Herren said some other tips include using a dry erase marker so designs can be redone if they do not come out right. She also said if something goes wrong during the carving, the pumpkin can be salvaged.

“Say you’re doing a bat or something like that and the head ends up getting cut off,” Herren said. “Then I would use toothpicks to stick that part of the pumpkin back into your design.”

There is a chance things might go so badly that the pumpkin can not be fixed. However, Herren said there are still uses if carving takes a turn for the worst.

“We have roasted the seeds before and put cinnamon and stuff like that on them,” Herren said. “Those are really good, people just throw it away, they don’t think about using the inside of the pumpkin.”

Herren said to get the carving job done she recommends a stencil, tooth picks, an ice pick and a sharp knife that is not too large. She said another important step in carving a pumpkin is removing as much of the inside as possible.