This Year's Pumpkins

This was my pumpkin pattern for this year -

Had to do it in a hurry, so it didn't turn out as well as I would have liked -

I ended up carving John's pumpkin while he was busy writing his thesis. He drew up the pattern himself and then got back to writing.

And here they are outside - our invitation for Trick-or-Treaters to knock on our door -

We had more Trick or Treaters this year than last year but I wouldn't say we had more than 20. We still have plenty of candy left over.

Past Jack O'Lanterns

We haven't carved our pumpkins yet because we've both been really busy. We think we won't have time until Sunday!!! I've got a good idea for mine, though, so don't worry - it will happen! I'm straying from American McGee this year having done jack-o'lanterns on that theme four times already. This year I was browsing photos online and I saw a really cool pumpkin someone else did. Naturally I thought I can do that better, so that's exactly what I'm doing. It won't be as detailed this year because I won't have days to complete the project. But since I'm thinking about pumpkins and we haven't posted for a few days, here's a photo post of some past Halloween fun to hold you over until we get around to this year's fun.

Here are some of my past pumpkins.
The Dremel pumpkins took a few days each to finish.
(I wish I could find the rest of my pictures!!!)
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2009
American McGee's Mad Hatter

I wish I had gotten a picture of this while it was lit. The parts where I took off more of the rind glowed brighter. I had a whole system going where certain parts of the face shone brighter than others. It was awesome. This took a long time because I had to draw it first and then transfer it to the pumpkin, retrace some of the lines with a Dremel, and then start really carving.

2008
American McGee's Cheshire CatI think this may have been the first time I used a Dremel tool, but it was the second time I did the Cheshire Cat. I ended up drawing only half of the face, making a copy and tracing an inversion to make the other half. (Less work.) I plan on doing this one again in the future, but better. (Third time's the charm, right?)

I've also done the American McGee White Rabbit but those pictures are floating around in my box of photo negatives. I must still have the pattern I made somewhere, though...

2006
Jack Skellington

This was a year when I actually did the carving after Halloween. I didn't have a whole lot of time, so I kept it simple and did something I could draw in just a few seconds.

2004
This might have been from a pattern - I don't remember.
This was a year when I did quite a few pumpkins for friends, which explains all of those pumpkins in the background. I'm counting four of them in this shot.
(Why wouldn't you want to do your own pumpkin?!!)

Happy Halloween!

Zombies!

While browsing for Halloween decor on Amazon, I came across this cute little book and thought, "Eh. Felt." (I do not like the texture of felt.) Strangely, that same afternoon, a fellow blogger posted a picture of a zombie she had made that was inspired by this book. The next day, I read a review of this book on yet another blog. After seeing this picture for the third time I figured "what the hell" and ordered it online. And it. is. AWESOME.
The book has several different patterns for tiny felt zombie dolls. Why do you need a felt zombie doll? You don't. But they're cute. You can hang them from Halloween trees if you have them (I want one!) or you can do what we did and turn them into refrigerator magnets. Making the dolls is not a difficult task but it is absolutely, positively time-consuming.

We used tracing paper to trace the patterns in the book. Then we cut out the pieces and traced them again onto colored card stock. (If you buy this and plan on making several zombies, I recommend that you do this so that you have sturdy pieces to trace onto the felt in the future.) Our pieces are color-coded and each sheet of card stock is textured on one side. This allows us to find the right pattern easily (colors) and orient them the way they need to be oriented when tracing them on felt (texture) which is especially helpful if you have felt that is not the same color on both sides!

Here we have golden pieces for the zombie duck, pink pieces for the zombie baby, green pieces for the zombie bunny, and red pieces for the zombie thrilla.
There are a lot of materials required for these little projects, so just starting out can be expensive. We had an advantage because we already had a ton of different beads and we had a ton of embroidery floss. (I bought a HUGE plastic bag full of different colors of embroidery floss at a flea market a few years ago for 50 cents. Is that an awesome deal or what?!) The only materials we actually had to buy were a few more beads, some ceramic magnets, toy stuffing, and a bunch of felt. You can buy bulk packages of assorted colors of felt online for really cheap (usually there's not much color variety) or you can go to your local craft store and improvise with what they have to offer. (Ours doesn't offer much!)

Once you've got all of the pieces cut out, you sew on the details.

After the details have been attached, you sew the different pieces together. They all have a front and back that need to be sewn together. Before you've completely sewn them together you cram in some toy stuffing. If you're turning them into magnets, don't forget to stick the magnet in there! We used some craft glue to help keep our magnets in place. Be careful - the magnets will attract the needles you are sewing these up with!

John's Bunny Zombie -
The book has you fold the ears back so that they're hanging down. We like the ears sticking up.

Erica's Ducky Zombie -
(It's already holding up some papers on the fridge.)

John tracing a pattern onto felt with a sharpened pencil.
USE A PENCIL! Pens don't work and markers are messy.

John cutting the piece out of the felt -

John's Baby Zombie -
This one actually doesn't look at all creepy, does it?
(That's supposed to be green drool coming out of that mouth.)
Not-So-Helpful Hint: That pacifier was a bitch to make.

Thrilla Zombie-
Look at this picture and then look at the picture on the book cover.
Mine is better!
My brains look way more brainy and I used glittery red felt for the clothes. :-)

Another Bunny Zombie -

John's Idea of a Joke -
For a size comparison, those colored square magnets are 1 square inch.
These are fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand tiny.

Seriously, making these is time-consuming. The first night we made these, we were cutting out patterns, tracing them, cutting out pieces, and then figuring out how to put them together. I'd say we spent at least four hours making them and each of us had only produced one that night. What we are doing now is cutting out patterns and felt pieces days ahead of time so that when we have the time to spend sewing them together we'll have all the pieces ready.

Some of the other patterns in the book include a zombie surfer, a pumpkin head zombie, a vampire zombie, and an undertaker zombie that looks a LOT like the thing that married Beetlejuice to Lydia -I've been thinking of some of my own zombie patterns and can't wait to try them out. What kind of felt zombie would you make? What are some of the things you plan to do for Halloween?