My dear friends… these pumpkins… and those flippin’ Funkins… they may have been the death of me this week. OK, at least the reason for the extra nightly pour of vino. This carving process DEFINITELY put me through my paces. It seemed like such an easy ‘no-brainer’ task. BOY was I wrong… and BOY do I have a new found appreciation for people that carve those intricate designs you see all over Pinterest.
Let me paint you a picture. Last week we bought our (real) pumpkins for carving. Cool. We did it. The boys had their designs figured out. We scooped, we roasted seeds, we carved, we treated the pumpkins in hope that they don’t mold in 3 days (they still did). The works. Family bonding at its finest. We only had enough time before bed to carve the Witzend Weeones’, the other 2 victims of the trusty knives would have to wait. And they did. Sometimes my brain just goes into over drive. You get my drift? The kind of overdrive where when you suddenly get an idea and it becomes all consuming? Where you pour yourself a glass of wine (or whatever), pop over to Pinterest for a “quick peek”and fall down a 3 day rabbit hole of You Tube tutorials? Yep. This was one of those.
We all love our chinoiserie painted pumpkins. I mean Duh, they are fabulous! I did a few, you probably did a few and a whole slew of amazing IG friends (@kellymasonbrookedesigns,s,@nataliefrostdavis @sevenstreetmarket, @danamahnke_indigohomeshop, @1mgonzalez and @theinspirednest to name a few!) are churning out pumpkin perfection! I mean WHO would you even try and mess with something that is already such a vision of seasonal sensation!?
Me…. that’s who. The rapid thought stream went like this… ‘I should have painted these pumpkins instead of scooping guts and getting them ready to carve’… WAIT…..’How COOL would it be to CARVE these pumpkins with Chinoiserie Designs!?’ … SOOO COOL! Then I could carve those Gawd awful frightful foam beasts (otherwise known as the “Funkin”) and have them in perpetuity and BAM…. be the coolest chick in the county.
I got to work… I already had some designs selected… ones that would possibly transfer in the usual pin pricking/ follow the stencil of your favorite Character kind of way that we do for the kids. It couldn’t be that hard right? Wrong. Designing effective templates (read: ones that would make is so the design didn’t fall through the pumpkin and would actually WORK) took me almost a week… I ruined 4 real pumpkins and 3 stupid over priced (even though they were on sale AND I had a coupon) Funkins. Urgh. It was all consuming and starting to get expensive. Plus, I then had foamy Funkin poop EVERYWHERE…. that stuff sticks to EVERYTHING, and I am SURE it is carcinogenic in some way… oh, and these pumpkins smell. You know what I mean… they have that injection molded plasticy “made in China” smell… so there was that. I spent the kids community college fund to stink up my house and spit nails.
I stepped away. I regrouped. I drank more wine. I slept on it. I walked by the project 45 times from 360 degrees of side eye angles with a cup of tea. It wasn’t going to beat me. By this point I had talked to a good friend who knew the ins and outs and shared my design frustration. I was on the brink of giving it up. AND THEN… a second round of you tube videos crept in… there was a solution… the DREMEL tool. Well, HEY GIRL HEY! I’ve got a Dremel! AND I know how to use it!
Insert a new mission of epiphanic proportions that included fully abandoning the carving technique and morphed into shading out the designs. So while I am pretty sure I got Carpal Tunnel and have been blowing pumpkin foam dust snot for days I am LOVING the results (and happily will now have these testaments of my toil for years to come). But, this was most definitely a case of ‘do as I say not as I do’ and a process that has certainly been testament to the fact that sometimes being crafty As F*#k can just about kill ya.
So, if you too have a trusty Dremel tool and aren’t afraid to use it then you may want to click here for my top tips on carving Funkins with power tools, otherwise known as Learn from my Lessons.
HAPPY CARVING!
xo,
Pippa