[Raven]

My husbands 83 year old grandmother hosts Thanksgiving dinner at her house every year. There have been up to 33 family members at one time. She LOVES to decorate for every holiday so I thought this would be a nice gift to her.

This was not my first time carving a foam pumpkin, but it has been many many years and I have never done one using a Versa Tool. While the blade slid easily through the pumpkin it's a bit hard to go around curves or cut out small pieces. Circles were impossible. I cut a hole in the back to stick a single small bulb in. I cut the hole a little too high up though and it's easily seen inside the pumpkin. I'm still happy with it, enough so that I don't want to give it away.

[Zombie Pumpkins!]

What a great gift, she's going to love it. So will all the family members that see it (if you're able to give it up, that is).

Your description of the foam carving with the versa tool sounds familiar. The size of the blade does make it difficult to be accurate with small details or tight curves. Don't worry, we'll bully the company that makes the blades into making a more narrow one eventually.

Nice photo too! The harvest is spilling right off the pumpkin.

[pagemaster1993]

Very nice job on the Harvest Turkey Raven.

[ghostface]

Excellent job! Perfect for Thanksgiving!

[snow2alike]

Raven it looks gorgeous and I know grandma will love it. If the light really bothers you --- put a piece of white typing paper behind the carved area which will diffuse the light. I generally cut a rectangle with curved corners and tape it to the inside. It doesn't have to fit right next to the design.

I know you don't like to carve foamies but after I get my pattern glued on
(or however you do it) I look for all the areas that would not be easy to carve with the versa tool. I just carve those with my regular pro carving tool. (little lines smaller than the hot knife blade, circles, tight curves, you know where the problems are. Once that's done ~~~ I hot knife the rest of the pattern.

Sorry, didn't mean to get on my school marm box !!!

[Ajax]

Looks really nice and thats a tough pattern I wouldn't want to have to do it on a foamie to much detail with such a massive blade.

[Raven]

I thought I would give every one an update on the Thanksgiving carving. I did give it away to my husbands grandmother. She was so happy I carved her a pumpkin. It truly makes me happy to see her so happy. I told her it was a fake pumpkin so she will have it for years to come. Her response was "What do you mean it's a fake pumpkin?!" She had no idea such things existed. She proudly made sure each family member that came over saw her pumpkin. Most asked me how I carved it and wanted details on the method used right down to the transfer paper. I'm hoping I sparked some interest in other family members to carve.

Even though it's a nice family friendly design it still lives up to the Zombie Pumpkin name. My niece seemed to turn evil while in the vicinity of the pumpkin. Her poor unsuspecting brothers had no idea what was about to befall them...



She didn't pose for this pic, it was just her being herself.

[SuperSonic]

Fantastic carving RD!!!! Razor sharp lines. Quite the pattern too to carve so well.

Fantastic face your niece has. I can only imagine what happened next!

[keifferone]

I finally did this one and I have to say it was the hardest I have done yet. But it was fun. My 14 year old niece watched me the entire time.

[amandap80]

I was actually thinking of doing this one this year too!

[Raven]

That looks great on a white pumpkin! I was kinda wishing I had bought a foamie this year and carved that for myself. I don't really decorate for Thanksgiving much, but this would have looked nice. Maybe next year I'll get it done.

[keifferone]

That looks great on a white pumpkin! I was kinda wishing I had bought a foamie this year and carved that for myself. I don't really decorate for Thanksgiving much, but this would have looked nice. Maybe next year I'll get it done.

I picked up about 5 on Saturday and have them all group together as a little display. I would love to do the Native American one to go along with it but I do not have any Larger ones left. And I know that is going to be really tough on a medium size one.