Sharing knowledge for the art of artificial craft pumpkins.
#77795
wookie66 wrote:So I went to Michael's today and really looked at those custom carvings that they offer to do and at the end your total bill is going to be around 60 to 70 dollars. That's nuts. I also asked them who carves the pumpkins and they said they ship them off to corporate to have them carved. So I guess part of the cost in getting a custom carve is double shipping. I'm also thinking potential side job opportunity and asking them if I can help them carve some of those pumpkins in the store.
Yeah, the custom carvings are not done in the store, and in fact they're just laser cut with a machine. And the cut lines don't even look that clean (at least, not on the in-store samples I saw). I thought Michaels was all about promoting craft projects by human hands. I realize that not everyone wants to carve a foam pumpkin, but as many of us know, it's not too hard. You're better off doing it yourself.
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By chuckwagon
#77803
Not to mention that carving a pumpkin, whether it's 1 each year or 100 is a family tradition to many many people, and the joy of choosing or designing a pattern is part of the fun of Halloween. Then carving out your jack and watching it come to life? C'mon, I don't want some silly laser machine stealing my good times!! I guess business is business though so I can't fault Michael's for seizing an opportunity.
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By wookie66
#77807
Oh wow, I had no idea about the laser cutters. I just figured it was a couple of employees in the back because your right Ryan the cuts don't look perfect which i was assuming was human error. Based on the price on having these carved it sounds like older rich people are the main targets for this. Oh well so much for my idea of getting paid for carving crappy patterns.
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By Kayo
#77878
after reading this entire thread last night on my flight i got my first two foamies today and made sure to get the ones with numbers on the bottom. no hot knife yet but it seems some of you have luck carving with regular pumpkin tools so i think i will try that. THANKS AGAIN MINIONS!
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By NikkiRae
#77879
My boyfriend and I stopped by Michael's yesterday looking for foamies. We stopped to look at the custom carve section out of curiosity. All of them were carvings that also came with arrangements in the pumpkins. The carves were plain and kind of boring, and the arrangements were something I could have done for maybe $20. They even had a pumpkin that they painted after carving. It looked very odd. The prices I saw ranged from $80-120. We couldn't believe how expensive it was! Definitely nothing I would ever spend my money on. I enjoy carving my own and I could do the same arrangements they had for under $80. Not worth it in my opinion.
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By Raven
#78017
My Michaels had foamies 50% off yesterday when I stopped by. I don't think my local store stocked that many, either that or people went crazy buying them because there were not many left. I didn't see any of the candy corn looking ones they had last year either. Anyway, for those looking for some check out your store because they are probably on sale.
#78032
I also went to Michaels this week, while pumpkins were 50% off. Their selection seemed to be dwindling a bit. About 3/4 of the large pumpkins were the hard foam version that I don't wish to carve. But I found a shelf with some of the softer variety, so I bought a couple more. Just to make sure I always have a few on hand.
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By sloaner
#78044
Got 4 myself. Most of the ones at my local store are the older soft version. The only hard one I had was the very first one I carved. I was checking everything in the bin and a lady that works there asked if I needed any help (she probably meant mental help) Only found a few of the crappy pumpkins.
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By oSpriteo
#78093
Stopped by Michaels tonight since they have these at 50% off. Almost cried when all the pumpkins i was picking up were the newer ones. Dug through the bin and found the last 2 pumpkins with the silver sticker and dates on the bottom. I could tell a big difference between the two different types.
#78094
I still haven't bought not one foam pumpkin this year. I'm almost proud of myself.
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By BigScience
#78398
I am glad that someone else noticed the inconsistency in the pumpkins. We are carving 20 or so this year and have noticed the difficulty in cutting one versus another. In terms of price you have to just watch. With the large ones we have paid between $12 and $20 each depending on sales and coupons.
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By sstory
#78663
My wife stopped the other day to get 3 for us. She had to dig through the bins to find some with the stickers and stamp on the bottom. Most of the others were the harder versions. Thanks for the heads-up about the differences in the versions.
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By NikkiRae
#78666
We got really lucky over the weekend. Found a Michael's in Tarentum that only sells the good pumpkins. However, they were not on sale yet and we didn't have time to get any. So we will be stopping back some time very soon hopefully to pick a few up.
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