messyart: Jack-O-Lanterns

One of my fave traditions for Halloween is the carving of pumpkins and making them into Jack-O-Lanterns. Normally we do quite a few pumpkins but this year we only did 2.

Traditionally, we carve out the pumpkins on Halloween day, but this year i did our pumpkins at Kody's kindy with his class. We talked a bit about what a Jack-O-Lantern was and how we carve them out (i had done one before i got there so they could see it), and then we carved one out from scratch in the classroom. Mr. Steve, Kody's kindy teacher had a go at the 2nd one and did an awesome job! We took a picture on the school camera (i will post when i get it).

We also carved out some capsicums as miniature pumpkins, which were really cute, and at nap-time, they put tealight candles in them all and lit them up for the kids. The kids loved getting their hands into the pumpkin and pulling out all the insides (well, not all of them, lol) and afterwards we toasted the pumpkin seeds from the pumkins and i believe the kids ate them as a snack (i was gone by then). It was alot of fun watching the kids all get involved. And for those who didnt want to get thier hands dirty i had brought in some old HS Halloween foam stamps, which they used to create some fun little art works.

IF you have never carved out a pumpkin i would definitely give it a go. It's really not as hard as one might think. And just to encourage you along, here are some tutorials to help you get started!

Martha does some great stuff with pumpkins over at her site and has plenty ot tips and tricks for Pumpkins that will be sure to amaze.

Pumpkin Carving How-To with Martha

And you can see more of her pumpkins HERE

Then you can also get a Video Tutorial HERE.

And here are some of my fave Pumpkin finds from Flickr...
Here, these, these, ooooh....and this one! Heres another one and how cute are these?

And if i now have you in the Pumpkin mood...what about trying some yummy pumpkin recipes like this Baked Pumpkin Cheesecake or one of the many pumpkin recipes from HERE or HERE.

And if you have any yummy pumpkin recipes of your own, please share!