[brittney867]

When I light my pumkpins up, their are little stringy pieces of the pumpkin here and there. It doesn't look clean or good when I look at it lit up.

Is there any way to get rid of them? Like carve it thinner? Ideas?

Anyone get what I mean or no?

[Zombie Pumpkins!]

Stringy pumpkins can be a pain. You can pluck the dangling bits off with your fingernails, but sometimes its like pulling a string on a sweater... more and more just pulls off with it. Not good if you're working around delicate areas of a carved design.

I usually just trim off stringy bits gently with a fine tooth carving saw (like the Pro Tool I sell) or even an x-acto blade. I like to do this sort of final clean-up stage in the sink. I lay the pumpkin on it's back, shine a flashlight inside, and trim away at any edges that need cleaning up.

Then I like to give it a rinse. "With the faucet or sprayer hose, spray some cool water through all the cut openings. This gets rid of any of the dangling bits and gives the pumpkin a little extra hydration for a nice fresh look."

[Lithium_joe]

on the subject of hydrating pumpkins, how do you then dry them out so that dampness doesn't encourage mould?

[Zombie Pumpkins!]

That's sort of the catch-22 with pumpkin carving. Dry pumpkins shrivel up the design. Wet pumpkins encourage mold growth.

When I rinse my pumpkins in the sink (or occasionally soak them to rehydrate them back to life) I simply pour out the water, and gently dry the surface with a towel.

If mold is a concern, you could use the Pumpkin Fresh or some bleach water. But personally, I never do much to kill the mold. As the artist behind my designs, I've always been more concerned with preserving the designs, than the health of the pumpkin.

Maybe it's the environment where display and store them, but mold has never been too fierce with my pumpkins. Generally, I see it growing more on the inside than around the design on the front.

And by the time the mold gets gross, the carved design is usually looking pretty sad anyway, so it's time to toss it by then.

[Lithium_joe]

"That's some catch, that catch-22."

"It's the best there is."

(Yossarian to Dr Daneka)