Pumpkin for Halloween - original decor ideas. How to make a Halloween jack-o'-lantern What a Halloween pumpkin looks like

Halloween is coming very soon (October 31st). This holiday is not yet very popular in Russia and the CIS countries, but everyone probably knows about its symbol - the pumpkin lantern. You can make it yourself, and even a child can do it under adult supervision.

How to make a jack-o'-lantern

First, we need - of course - a pumpkin, but not just any pumpkin, but a ripe one, without spots, scratches or other damage. Do not lift the pumpkin by the stem - this can cause the vegetable to fall and become crushed. To make cleaning the pumpkin easier, place newspapers underneath it.

Carefully cut off the top of the pumpkin and the stem to create a round neckline. For this purpose, you can use special plastic knives for “pumpkin carving,” which are safer.

Then, using a long-handled ladle, scoop out all the seeds and insides of the pumpkin. To prevent the vegetable from falling on its side and to make it easier to scoop out the seeds, also cut out the middle. By the way: the larger the pumpkin, the more convenient it is to clean it.

Now find the spot on the pumpkin where you will cut out the face. Draw facial features (eye sockets and grin) on a piece of paper. There is no need to make complex designs, otherwise it will be difficult to cut. Attach the "face" diagram to the pumpkin and trace the lines using a sharp pin or nail.

Now all that remains is to carefully run a knife along the “dotted lines” of the pumpkin and remove the cut out areas. The lantern is ready!

Place it in a visible place, don't forget to put a few burning candles inside, turn off the lights and admire your work. Such a pumpkin can greatly surprise, or even frighten, guests, the main thing is not to be frightened yourself. That's all!

And so that you can make a variety of “facial expressions” for your lanterns, we invite you to look at the photos for a wide variety of ideas for jack-o-lanterns for Halloween.

It seems that the pumpkin was specially created for creativity. Interesting vases, openwork candlesticks or decorative lanterns - this is not the entire list of what can be made from this autumn fruit. Grinning faces will create a fabulous atmosphere in your home, floral or geometric patterns will complement natural material and will become an original piece of decor for any interior, and vampires, bats and evil spirits will terrify not only children, but also adults. Moreover, very soon the gates between the material and other worlds will be opened again, all devilry will descend to earth and most people, according to the good old Celtic tradition, will honor evil spirits by celebrating Halloween.

An integral attribute of this “terrible” holiday - the pumpkin head - owes its appearance to the Irish legend about an old farmer named Jack, who not only led a vicious life, but twice deceived the devil himself, after which he was doomed to wander around the world after death with a pumpkin head and a smoldering ember inside her.

But enough theory: it’s time to start putting words into action. And today we will tell you not only about how to choose, prepare and make a pumpkin for Halloween, but also share interesting and useful ideas.

Pumpkin for Halloween: step-by-step instructions

Choosing a fruit

In order to create a pumpkin arrangement that will scare away evil spirits from your home, you first need to choose the “right” vegetable. Actually, a fairly smooth pumpkin with an intact surface and no rotten places is ideal for this role. Moreover, it must be a fresh fruit, which will have a soft peel that is easy to process. By the way, in order not to make a mistake and accidentally buy a spoiled pumpkin, first pull its tail: if it comes off easily, then most likely it has already begun to rot from the inside.

Preparing the tools

It is equally important to prepare the tools themselves. To carve a Halloween pumpkin, you will need several thin, well-sharpened knives with blades of different lengths (you can also use woodworking tools), a sturdy tablespoon, a felt-tip pen or marker for drawing, and a short candle.

Making a pumpkin

Now that the preparatory work is completed, you can start creating!

To do this, use a marker at the base of the pumpkin (where the tail grows) to mark the “lid” in the form of a simple circle or polygon. Then, using a knife, cut it off. At the same time, in order to get a cone-shaped cutout, and your lid does not fall inside the “head” as a result, hold it at an angle of 45 degrees. This is a rather labor-intensive process, so you will have to be patient and put in a lot of effort.

After the “trephination” is completed, it’s time to “clean” your beauty. It is much more convenient to start freeing it from pulp and seeds directly with your hands. And then use a tablespoon to scrape off the remaining fibers from the inner walls. Remember that the optimal thickness of the walls of the pumpkin in the part where you are going to cut out the face is 2-3 centimeters.

Your pumpkin is almost ready, all that’s left is to make it a funny or angry face, or maybe not even a face…. Whatever it is, draw a sketch on paper first, make sure that it is exactly what you imagined - and you can safely transfer the drawing to the peel.

Next, paint over with a marker the places that you are going to cut out so that they are better visible, and, armed with a kitchen or penknife, begin the “jewelry” work. To do this, use back-and-forth movements, trying to adhere to the contour as accurately as possible. Take your time. If necessary, remove the tool and insert it at a new angle.

To complete the composition, insert a candle inside the pumpkin head, light it and put the lid back on the pumpkin.

How to make a pumpkin for Halloween - video

TOP 10 pumpkins for Halloween: interesting ideas

Familiar character

Pumpkin with a glowing scary face for Halloween - classic version holiday decor. However, you don't have to literally resort to standards when creating predictable images - it's Halloween! Especially in the 21st century. Approach the task creatively and creatively. Twist the fruit in your hands - perhaps, along with inspiration, new ideas will come to your mind. For example, if instead of trivial round, square or triangular elements of the “face” you cut out crosses, stars or even bats, then you'll already be adding a little personality to the individual pumpkin. If you're a fan of more unconventional solutions, let's experiment with more unconventional and sophisticated design approaches together!

Famous lantern

Have you ever wondered why, when carving various faces out of pumpkins, everyone calls them a lantern? After all, a lantern should be a lantern! It doesn’t matter whether it’s ancient or modern, camping or garden, but a lantern. Do you share the same opinion? Then, choosing any image of the lantern you like, transfer it to the pumpkin, and, armed with a thin knife, cut out only that part through which the light should be visible. Place a candle inside and your pumpkin will take on an original look.

Pumpkin in a pumpkin

As you can imagine, Halloween is also about competition among pumpkins. Therefore, it is quite possible to see a pumpkin horror devouring another monster...

To create such a composition, you will need a huge and a very small pumpkin (you can also use an orange and a pumpkin of any size). And then proceed according to the proven scheme: having come up with a scarier face, cut it out. At the same time, when you need to cut out the mouth, it is best to start with a narrower part of it, and first make the wide hole for the “victim” narrower, gradually trimming it so that it does not fall out of the mouth.

Snowman Jack

As you know, there is always and everywhere a place for something good and bright. Therefore, although Halloween is a time of revelry for evil spirits, not everything on it should be evil and scary. In addition, there is very little time left until winter, which means it’s time to remember about snowmen.

Agree, the greeter is right next to front door pumpkin snowman Jack will create a real sensation among invited guests. A hat, a collar from an old shirt, 2-3 buttons, felt-tip pens, a cork from a wine bottle and a little glue will help you make a fat good fellow that will become an unusual holiday decoration for your home.

Halloween lace pumpkin

What if we digress even more from the “ugly” topic and try to make something beautiful and airy? Let's say, master the technique of painting? Moreover, in order to create such beauty, you only need acrylic paints, brush, glass contour and several toothpicks.

First, cover the pumpkin with an even layer of paint and let it dry thoroughly. Once it is free of your fingerprints, use a toothpick to draw some interesting patterns on the pumpkin, and then steal it with an outline. Or immediately decorate the peel with openwork leaves, geometric shapes or mysterious symbols. Don’t limit your imagination - and you will end up with not just an original decorative element, but also an excellent gift for friends.

Glamorous pumpkin

When glamor goes out of fashion, many will probably breathe a sigh of relief, but for now glossy subjects are a source of inspiration when working on holiday interior design, especially when it comes to creating a terrible beautiful decor. Gold or silver plating, rhinestones, sequins - there is nothing easier than making such a glamorous pumpkin. Or you can paint the fruit black, draw a skull and crossbones on it in silver, and glue a decorative pink organza bow on top - and then you’ll have a punk-glam pumpkin.

Pumpkin that vomited

Perhaps such an idea seems disgusting, but believe me, such a disgusting image looks very impressive. The secret is that you cut out a pumpkin according to a known pattern, but unlike a traditional face, its mouth should be wide open and its eyes wide and slightly slanted.

In addition, after you free it from the seeds and pulp, put part of the cleaned insides in its mouth so that they hang down and fall out, and part below it. By the way, the same idea can be used to decorate a festive table, only put in the pumpkin’s mouth not the insides, but some real appetizer or sauce.

Text messages

Agree that a romantic message carved on a pumpkin by some shy guy who can't wait for Valentine's Day looks sincere and sweet. What if it was also carved with a party sign, the logo of a symbolic musical group, mysterious spells or thematic phrases like “In the house of the witch” or “Beware. Zombie!"? Depending on the size of your pumpkin, cut out one word or a whole phrase on it, and also write them down in letters or syllables on several pumpkins of approximately the same size and place them in the desired sequence.

Pumpkin burger

Believe it or not, but on your festive table By Halloween, a pumpkin can become not only a decorative item, but also completely irreplaceable, using it as a utensil. Alternatively, it can be shaped like a huge hamburger. To do this, cut the pumpkin in half and remove the core. Next, on one half, place a large chop instead of the usual cutlet, slices of cheese, tomato slices, lettuce leaves, and cover your “sandwich” with the other, like sesame, decorating it with the seeds that you peeled from the core.

Functional pumpkin

As they say, good things never go to waste, so you can try to make the pumpkin not just beautiful, but also useful. For example, if you decide to have a party and invite guests, then a pumpkin can completely replace your refrigerator. Cut it in half, cut out the core, fill it with crushed ice and place the drink bottles. Such an extraordinary “dish” will come in very handy and will be remembered by your guests for a long time. And you can come up with a lot of such examples! The main thing is to give free rein to your imagination.

Try to make your Halloween pumpkin original and interesting. Happy All Saints' Day to you!

Vladislava Esmanovich for the site

Halloween appeared several centuries ago. According to an old Irish legend, it was invented by a blacksmith named Jack. He was a heavy drunkard, and also very stingy. Jack deceived the devil twice and received a promise from him not to plot all sorts of intrigues for him, but soon the blacksmith died without having time to take advantage of this.

After his death, the Irishman did not go to heaven or hell and was forced to wander the earth. Satan threw a piece of coal to the blacksmith, which he put in an empty pumpkin and began to wander around the world with this makeshift lamp.

How to make a jack-o'-lantern

To do this, you need to choose a pumpkin of the correct spherical shape and a bright orange color. Any size fruit will work to make a pumpkin head, but the best lanterns are made from medium-sized pumpkins.

In addition, you will need:

• sharp knife;


• spoon;


• awl;


• scotch;


• scissors;


• stencil.

Make a stencil. Traditionally, the pumpkin head is depicted with 2 eyes and a nose in the form of triangles and a large mouth. But modern masters cut out a wide variety of subjects. You can also draw them on a piece of paper and use the drawing as a template.

Using a sharp knife, cut off the top of the pumpkin. Do this at an angle so that later it stays in place and does not fall inward. Clean the fruit and pulp. Use a spoon to scrape out the walls; their thickness should be no more than two centimeters.

Attach the stencil using pieces of tape to the side where the face will be. Now make punctures with an awl along the contours of the design. In this case, the holes should be located quite often at a distance of 2-3 mm from each other.

Remove the template and start cutting out the design with a sharp knife. Cut through the walls of the fruit. Do this slowly and carefully. To cut small parts, use special knives for carving. After cutting along all the contours, remove the cut out parts and carefully cut the flesh at an angle so that it is not visible from the front side.

Immediately coat the cut areas of the pumpkin with a small amount of vegetable oil, so the pulp will not deteriorate for quite a long time, and the lantern will last longer. Traditionally, a burning candle is placed inside the Jack-o'-lantern, but it will be much safer if you place a regular battery-powered lantern inside the pumpkin.

Halloween is approaching, which means it's time to start preparing for the holiday. We present to you a master class on making the most popular accessory for All Saints' Day - a jack-o'-lantern.

In the West, pumpkins burning in the night have a special meaning. It is believed that they symbolize the souls of the dead, who are forever stuck between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and therefore are doomed to eternal wanderings and torment. The pumpkin is called Jack's head. According to legend, this was the name of the cunning drunkard farmer. They say that he deceived the devil himself and forced Satan not to take his sinful soul to hell. It’s just that Jack’s road to heaven was closed, so after his death he had to look for the road to the other world on his own. When Jack again asked the devil for help, he mockingly only threw him a few coals from hell. The farmer carved a head-shaped lantern out of a pumpkin and put coals in it. So he wandered in the pitch darkness, illuminating his path with this terrible head.

This is where the tradition of carving pumpkins on All Hallows' Eve came from. In Russia this holiday is not as popular as in Western countries, and is more of an entertaining nature, and a pumpkin for us is simply an ominous and interesting attribute for a party. We will tell you how to cut it correctly.

What do we need?

• pumpkin
• awl or thick needle
• spoon (if possible, it is better to take a special one for carving)
• knife with a thin and sharp blade (also would be better suited carving knife, but this is not necessary)
• marker
• stencils (we have already made a selection of suitable images - take them)
• candle or portable flashlight

Tip: If you always celebrate Halloween, look for a carving set. You'll be surprised how easy the process of cutting out a Jack O' Lantern is. Don't go too big: a modest three-piece set (knife, scraper spoon, and needle knife) is a great option. If you are not sure that you will often carve pumpkins, replace everything with the items we wrote about above

How to carve a pumpkin?

First let's talk about pumpkin. Standard size– 20-30 cm. Of course, you can take a larger or smaller vegetable. Make sure that the tail is dry. The fact is that pumpkins with a wet tail are already overripe and are beginning to deteriorate, which means they will last less. Please note that it is better to cut out lanterns on the eve of Halloween or 1-2 days before the party. The pumpkin will begin to rot already on the fifth day after cutting.

We wash and dry the pumpkin, marking a place to cut off the top. Carefully cut off the cap. Don't throw it away, we'll need it later. Let's scrape the pulp from it, cut out two neat triangles so that the lid allows air to pass through when the lantern is lit. Now let's wash it and let it dry.

Now let's get to the pumpkin itself. Most The pulp can be removed directly with your hands. Everything on the walls needs to be scraped out with a spoon. Don't skip sections, this is important. If there is any pulp left inside the vegetable, the lantern will spoil faster.

The hollow pumpkin needs to be washed from the inside and dried very well. To do this, we will leave her alone for two to three hours, preferably in the open air. At this time you can start making stencils. Choose any drawing you like. Print it out or be prepared to draw it. When the pumpkin is dry, start drawing the image with a marker and cutting out holes using a thin knife.

Don't be afraid to make a mistake - the marker can be easily removed from the pumpkin with a damp cloth

Hollow out thin and small parts along the contour using an awl and or a special needle for carving.

Ready product clean off the pulp that has formed during the cutting process and dry again a little. Then you can place a candle on the bottom of the lantern. Do not take thin and long candles, because they will soften the lid. It is better to take small candles in glass or metal candlesticks and simply place them inside.

This is what pumpkins look like daylight.

So they glow in the night (in in this case candle in a glass candlestick).

If you have mastered the simplest faces, try carving a black cat, bat or something else interesting and sinister.

If you have small children in your home, ensure safety. It's better to stop using candles and use regular portable flashlights for your Halloween party. With them, the pumpkin will also burn, but if someone decides to put a finger in Jack’s mouth, it will not result in tears.

Make some flaming jack-o'-lanterns and throw a themed Halloween party!

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The demon became a coin, and Jack the Sly, instead of paying for the ale, put it in his pocket with a silver cross. The damned spirit found himself in a trap and, in order to take on his former appearance, agreed to the farmer’s conditions: not to touch Jack for several years and not to take his soul to hell.

Well, what does pumpkin have to do with Halloween and what does this have to do with everything? The most direct! Read on!
So, a few years later the farmer died, but the gates of heaven were closed to him, since during his life he was a sinner. The devil remembered his promise not to let him into hell, but, taking pity on Jack, he presented several smoldering embers of hell so that they would illuminate the path for the restless soul.

To keep the coals from going out and burning as long as possible, Jack carved a lantern out of a pumpkin and placed a smoldering gift in it. Since then, the sinner farmer's lantern symbolizes a wandering soul that has no place in heaven or hell.

By the way, the holiday was originally celebrated by the Irish, who carved lanterns from turnips. Pumpkin began to be used for Halloween by Americans, who liked the holiday of wandering souls, and it was in America that this vegetable became the main attribute of the holiday.

Naturally, whole pumpkin It doesn’t look much like a decoration, there’s nothing festive about it. Therefore, every year, a few days before the holiday, most people cut lanterns out of pumpkins, clean them of pulp and place candles inside. In general, they create the semblance of a farmer's lantern as best they can.
By the way, the day of celebration, October 31, is not accidental. It is believed that on this day the doors of other worlds open, through which various entities and souls of deceased loved ones penetrate into our world. That is why on holiday it is customary to dress up in scary costumes and prepare “scary” treats for souls in order to appease them a little.

What you will need:

• pumpkin
• felt-tip pen
• spoon
• candle tablet

If the pumpkin is large, then you will need several knives different lengths blades.

What you need for a Jack-o'-lantern

How to carve a pumpkin for Halloween: carving skills to help us!

I envy those who have virtuosity and carving skills and create complex plots from vegetables. But we are also not cut out for it, and we can cut out a lantern.

Using a felt-tip pen, we draw any face on the pumpkin (I didn’t want to draw an angry one), don’t forget to mark the lantern lid, which can be square, round or polygonal, like mine.

First, cut out the lid and scrape out the inside of the vegetable with a spoon. You need to remove the seeds and scrape off more pulp so that the walls of the lantern become a little thinner; in addition to the spoon, I also used a knife. Then, using a knife, carefully and leisurely cut out the muzzle. Movements should be back-and-forth, unhurried, so as not to accidentally get hurt.

When the lantern is ready, place a candle inside, light it, turn off the light and admire what kind of face you cut out and the more different lantern faces there are, the more more interesting holiday.

As it turns out, Halloween pumpkins can be wonderful and... original decoration, there would be ideas. I decided to pick a video with jack-o'-lanterns, perhaps something will spur your imagination to create your own unforgettable masterpiece.