It's That Time Again...

Time for Halloween crafts!  I'm in love with this adorable pumpkin craft I did the other day - it's so damn cute.  I got it from the undisputed queen.  That would be Martha.  I'll give you a little rundown of what I did, and you can also get step-by-step directions here.  I wanted to try it last Halloween, but I never got around to it, so I made sure to get the supplies I needed this year so I could make it happen.

ROWR!!

Amazon Prime to the rescue again.  Kodiak is pretty limited as far as shopping goes, so not surprisingly, there's no craft store here.  I was so sad when I learned that bit of knowledge.  I used to love strolling around Ben Franklin, Michael's, or Joanne's for inspiration.  I guess I'll have to "stroll" around the internet for inspiration now.  Thankfully, so far I've been able to get everything I've wanted for craft projects through Amazon, including the vampire teeth I used for the pumpkins. 

It's not a difficult project, and the end result is Halloween-tastic.  First, you'll want to draw an outline on the pumpkin of what size mouth you want to cut, using the vampire teeth to sort of estimate the size you'd like.  The next obvious step is to cut out the mouth.  It's probably a lot easier to use one of those little saws that come in pumpkin carving kits, but I lost mine somewhere between here and there.  That's our go to answer whenever something goes missing.  It's somewhere between here and there. 

So, I used a paring knife to cut the mouth by sort of rocking it back and forth once I pierced through the outer part of the skin.  Kind of tedious, but it gets the job done if you're saw-less.  Once you've cut the mouth out, you'll need to scrape all the lovely pumpkin seeds and guts out.  I was pretty thorough with scraping out all the gunk because the pumpkins will be outside on the table in front of the house and I don't want to attract any Magpies.

A nice little bonus to this project is that you can rinse and toast the pumpkin seeds you scoop out for a delicious, savory snack.  An easy recipe for that is here.  I like to (of course) sprinkle a little parmigiano-reggiano on them along with the olive oil, salt and pepper.  It's a yummy high fiber & high protein snack to munch on while you craft it up!

Once the inside is all scraped out, position the teeth into the mouth.  For the eyes, I sacrificed one of my red plastic bead necklaces.  Between living in the Tampa area and celebrating Gasparilla and living in Key West and celebrating Fantasy Fest, we have our fair share of plastic beads.  I carved out a tiny hole for each of the eyes so they would be a little recessed, and used hot glue to secure the eyes in place.  Voilà!  All done.

I must confess - It's late and I'm a few glasses of wine in.
And yes, I'm cracking up laughing in this picture.
Apparently, the wine told me it's wildly hilarious
to take selfies with vampire teeth.  ;)

I love the way they turned out!  I'm working on another Halloween project that I wanted to include in this blog post along with the vampire pumpkins, but I unexpectedly ran out of one of the essential materials in the middle of working on it.

Since I had to re-order more on Amazon, I'll have to wait until it comes in the mail to finish it.  I also have plans for the bigger pumpkin, but I wasn't able to get it done before this post. So, be prepared for another Halloween crafting post in the next few weeks.  Let's hear it for Martha.  Now, go get some pumpkins!

Ta-ta for now.