Pumpkin Lanterns

Take an ordinary paper lantern, dress it up with leaves, a stem, and tendrils, and it will assume a totally unexpected identity: a Halloween pumpkin. A few craft supplies are all you need to transform these inexpensive, light-as-air globes.

Pumpkin Lantern How-To
1. Download and enlarge the Leaf Template as desired; cut out, and trace onto green paper. Cut out.

2. With white craft glue, attach a dark-green pipe cleaner to the leaf's center. For curly tendrils, spiral two brown pipe cleaners around a marker, then slide off.

3. Attach leaf and tendrils to a paper lantern by winding the ends of the pipe cleaners around the wire frame. For stem, roll a few sheets of newspaper into a tapered shape; cut off wider end, then wrap other end with brown floral tape.

4. Wrap another brown pipe cleaner around base of stem; secure ends to wire frame. Hang lanterns with fishing line.

From Martha Stewart, First Published: October 2004

It is Pumpkin Time...

From Martha Stewart, First Published: October/November 1993

Martha-O-Lanterns

I think I need to have a pumpkin carving party!
How cool are these Jack-O-Lanterns. They are all from MarthaStewart.com (How is it possible that everything she does is spectacular? Who creates such perfection?! I always think if I were to do the same thing, it just wouldn't be as cool...It has to be the photography...)...

"Black Magic Decorations"

Tools and Materials
Pumpkins
Miniature carving saw
Plaster scraper
Masking tape
Black floral spray
Battery-powered light
Needle tool or awl
Waxed paper Straight pins

Carved Pumpkins How-To
1. Make a 4-inch round hole in the bottom of your pumpkin with a carving saw; scrape out flesh.

2. Place pumpkin on newspaper in a well-ventilated area. Wrap masking tape around stem, and coat pumpkin with black floral spray. Let dry for 30 minutes; remove tape.

3. Print desired template enlarged or reduced to fit your pumpkin, and cut outside the perimeter. Tape to pumpkin.

4. Use needle tool to outline the shape with close-set holes. Cut out design with saw. (If necessary, touch up pumpkin with floral spray.)

5. Place battery-powered light inside. For a muted glow, affix a sheet of waxed paper behind the cutout with straight pins before adding the light source.

"Cookie Cutter Pumpkins"

1. Cut a hole in the pumpkin's base, and hollow the pumpkin out. Hammer small cookie or canape cutters into the skin to create a pattern of deep outlines. Remove cutters with pliers; finish holes with serrated knife.

2. Line your walkway or front porch with Christmas lights, plugged into an outside socket or heavy-duty extension cord, and position a pumpkin over each lightbulb.

3. When you're finished carving, conceal the utility cord with pine needles or leaves.

Pumpkin Owls

The owls' extra-large eyes are made from halved miniature pumpkins and gourds. Their feet and ears are curved pieces of pumpkin.

Pumpkin Owls How-To

These instructions can be adapted to create the facial details of other animals.

1. Cut a large hole out of the top of a pumpkin, scoop out insides, and keep top to plug hole
later; cut a 1- to 1 1/4-inch hole in the
back for ventilation. Make eye holes: First
mark with a pen, then drill (with a 5/8-inch bit) or cut with a large hole cutter. Next, in the tops of two mini pumpkins, cut holes slightly larger than eye holes; scoop out insides. Drill a small hole in the bottom of each mini pumpkin. From inside larger pumpkin, push four lights through each eye hole, securing the bottom of the bundle with a rubber band to keep the bulbs from touching one another. Attach
mini pumpkins over lights using toothpicks. Wrap more lights around a glass, securing wires with tape, and place inside body.

2. Add "feathers": Use a wood gouge or linoleum cutter to make half circlesin the skin.

3. Cut ear, nose, and feet shapes from other pumpkins with a serrated knife; attach with toothpicks.

The Tale of Three Squashes

Legend has it that the luckless souls who hear the Three Squashes' song of woe shall vanish into the nearest vegetable patch, never to be seen or heard from again. Since narrow squashes are easier to hollow out if you work from both ends, these guys had the tops of their heads cut off.

From Martha Stewart, First Published: Special Issue 2004

Trick-or-Eat

This ravenous pumpkin is cursed: He must offer up sweets to children all evening, yet he is not allowed to eat them (neither the sweets nor the children). A treat-filled bowl was placed in his cavernous mouth, and miniature flashlights were tucked on either side, against his jowls.

Click here for the template.

From Martha Stewart, First Published: Special Issue 2004

Peek-a-boo Pumpkins

Being trapped in a candy dish is vexing, to be sure. The mini pumpkin at right had his stem sliced off, then was placed in the bowl. His eyes and nose were penciled in; he was removed, carved, and cruelly confined again. The one at left was carved, then balanced on a teapot.

From Martha Stewart, First Published: Special Issue 2004

Translucent Pumpkins

Halloween custom calls for a fiercely lit, glowering jack-o'-lantern, but you might also consider the more subtle glow of an elegant monogram, playful spirals, or a whimsical harlequin pattern. By paring away the skin and only part of the flesh rather than carving all the way through, the lantern becomes translucent when lit from within. The harlequin pattern combines both techniques, resulting in a multicolored effect.

1. Cut a hole in the pumpkin's base, and hollow the pumpkin out. If you're using a candle, cut a lid out of the top using a keyhole saw; for low-wattage lightbulbs, cutting a hole in the top is optional, but you must also cut a hole in the back of the pumpkin for the cord. Apply petroleum jelly to any exposed flesh to keep it from drying out.

2. If you're carving a monogram, find an example of typeface to use and enlarge it on a photocopier to the desired size. Tape the monogram to the pumpkin with masking tape. Using a needle tool or pushpins, poke holes through the monogram and into the pumpkin around the outline of the letters at close intervals. Remove photocopy, and connect the "dots" by pen. Pare the flesh down with a gouge in open spaces and a linoleum cutter in tight spaces, leaving about half the thickness of the translucent flesh intact to allow sufficient light to show through. (You don't need a template to create spirals or a harlequin pattern, spirals can be carved freehand, and the harlequin diamonds can be drawn, prior to carving, using a felt-tipped pen.)

3. Wrap Christmas lights around a glass for a radiant light source. To even out the light, affix a piece of wax paper with tacks to the inside of the monogram.

From Martha Stewart, First Published: October 1998

Silver Pumpkins

Use silver floral spray to coat pumpkins

From Martha Stewart, First Published: October 2007