[Flak]

I've got a little foam Michael's pumpkin I'm trying to carve and it's not pretty so far. Aside from the horrible pattern placement and frightening lack of foresight, everything's coming out kinda jagged. I'm using an exacto knife, it's one of those kinda pen style ones. I've tried using an emory board to smooth some of the shapes a bit but it's not doing a whole lot, and I don't have anything small enough to get into the smaller pieces.

Any tips to get this carving right without having to spend more money?

[Zombie Pumpkins!]

Saw blade teeth can rough up the edges of a Michael's foam pumpkin, but you say you're using an xacto, so you should have better luck with that. Not sure if there's much else I can suggest, other than getting versa tool heated blade, but you said you didn't want to spend more money so....

[Flak]

I had a change of heart, I decided I liked the rough look. Kinda fits Sam as a character.





Thanks for the help though. Maybe next year I'll splurge and do a few foam pumpkins.

[Zombie Pumpkins!]

Ah, that looks great. Nice idea to put Sam on a foam. Now he can join you every Halloween.

[Dadja]

Looks good to me
If you really wanted to smoothen it, you could maybe try a nail file or something?

[GUS]

I posted lots of replies to various doodahs last night but bug probs evidently caught them in the net..

looks like you are not scoring your foamies first? simply cutting straight through?

Simple light trimming / shaving with a sharp blade will make your lines infintessimally cleaner if you wish to dress it.