Guide
How to carve a pumpkin with a stencil
A stencil turns carving from guesswork into colouring-in with a saw. Allow about an hour for your first one.
What you need
- A pumpkin with a smooth, fairly flat face, a little bigger than the printed stencil.
- Your stencil, printed at 100% size (“actual size”, not “fit to page”).
- Sticky tape, and scissors to trim the paper.
- Something pointed for marking: a pumpkin poker, a skewer or a large nail.
- A small serrated pumpkin saw. They are safer and far more accurate than a kitchen knife.
- A big spoon or scoop, a bowl for the insides, and newspaper for the table.
- An LED tea light, or a real one if the pumpkin will sit outside.
Step by step
Open the pumpkin from the bottom
Cut a hole in the base rather than the lid. The pumpkin then sits flat over the light, the stalk stays on as a handle, and the top doesn’t sag as it dries. Angle the saw inwards so the piece can’t fall through if you do cut a lid instead.
Scoop it out, then thin the wall
Scrape out the seeds and strings. Then keep scraping the side you are going to carve until the wall is about 2 cm (¾ inch) thick. A thinner wall is much easier to saw and lets more light through.
Tape on the stencil
Trim the paper to a few centimetres around the design. Snip a few slits into the edges so it can wrap around the curve, then tape it down flat, starting from the middle.
Mark the lines with dots
Poke along every line, a dot every 3 mm or so (closer on tight corners). Push just through the skin. Peel the paper off and keep it nearby to check against. If the dots are hard to see, rub a little flour over them.
Saw from dot to dot
Hold the saw like a pencil and cut straight in, with a gentle up-and-down motion. Don’t twist: take the saw out and start again at each corner. Do the smallest shapes in the middle first, while the pumpkin is at its strongest, and work outwards.
Push the pieces out
Push each piece out from the inside with a finger. If one sticks, run the saw around it again rather than forcing it. A piece that breaks can be pinned back with a cocktail stick.
Light it up
Set the pumpkin over an LED tea light. With a real candle, cut a small chimney in the back near the top so the heat can escape, and never leave it burning unattended.
Making it last
- Carve no more than two or three days before you want it at its best.
- Rub petroleum jelly or cooking oil on the cut edges to slow them drying out.
- Keep it somewhere cool and out of direct sun. On warm days, the fridge overnight helps.
- If it starts to wilt, soak it in cold water for an hour and it will firm up again.
Carving with children
Let small children scoop, tape on the stencil and poke the dots, and have an adult do the sawing. Pick a stencil marked Easy: big shapes are more forgiving and look better from the pavement anyway.