Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone in blog land had a wonderfully spooky Halloween.  I know I did. Ty & I both were surprised at how well the decorations turned out and as he said "We had a very successful Halloween".  How sweet of him to say.

Here's a quick breakdown on how I carved my second pumpkin. 

I chose this crow design.

(I had a hard time picking my second design.  I loved my bats so much!)

Of course there were a few things to change. First, I knew those branches were going to be close to impossible to cut, so I made them thicker and less gnarled. Second I had to create a circle around the bird that it could live in. Third I had to connect a few spots of the bird into the circle or else it wouldn't stand up!

Here's my stencil on my pumpkin.  To get to this point, check out the first few steps from Pumpkin Carving 101.  Because this second pumpkin was larger, I used my spoon to scrape away extra flesh from the inside of the pumpkin to make it thinner and easier to carve!

Once I poked the holes, I removed the stencil and got carving!

Here are pictures of my house and my pumpkins!  My neighbours even commented on our decorations.  I think the flock of bats and music we had playing really put things over the top!  One of my neighbours saw me putting up the bats (cut out from scrap booking paper) and asked how I did it....I replied "just cut them out and hung them with string and scotch tape."  Easy and effective.  Ty even saw strangers (trick or treaters parents) taking pictures of our pumpkins!  That made me especially proud!