Every year for as long as I can remember, I’ve created at least one Halloween pumpkin. When I was younger, this would be a “scary” face that usually consisted of triangle-shaped eyes, a square nose and a zig zag mouth, because that was pretty much all I could manage to draw on or cut out with a knife.
I’ve managed to extend my pumpkin carving capabilities a bit of late – a couple of years ago, I managed a spooky owl carved into my pumpkin, then I attempted to create Sulley’s face using a template quite similar to the one here. It wasn’t entirely successful – I’ve never been one for art – but I’ve ever since loved the idea of Disney inspired pumpkins at Halloween.
There are lots of ideas out there, especially thanks to attractions such as the Haunted Mansion and because of Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party (I’m dying to make it to this one year!). But my (first!) pumpkin for this year was based around the idea of Walt himself:
Along with one of my friends, Charley, who is just as, if not more, Disney-obsessed as I am, we forged our plan of attack on the pumpkin. On the way back from our road trip holiday around the UK, we were stopping to meet them for an evening in the Peak District. We’d stopped at the supermarket and I spotted pumpkins for only 75p, so I snatched one up as a surprise “activity” to give to Charley when we arrived.
One thing that you should know about Charley is that once we’ve got an idea and made a plan, she likes to see it through to the end properly. We discussed ideas from hidden Mickeys to scary Halloween faces, but decided in the end to take a different route – one of our favourite Walt quotes:
I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse.
Sadly, we had to cut the quote a little bit to make sure it would fit properly on the pumpkin, and it wasn’t until we started drawing on the letters that we realised how difficult this was going to be! We didn’t have a pumpkin carving kit, only a couple of kitchen knives and a biro! It also took us a little while to realise that letters with holes in the middle were going to be quite tricky and we had to formulate a plan of action to deal with them.
Our other halves had gone out to grab some supplies (also known as beer) and they arrived back to find us covered in pumpkin and in a trance of intense concentration. But we completed it, with a hidden Mickey included for good measure too!
What do you think of our Walt Disney inspired Halloween pumpkin? Would you try one yourself, and what quote would you choose to carve?