Zombie Pumpkins

Halloween crafts this year are courtesy of the Queen, yet again.  That would be Martha.  Stewart, for those who don't immediately think of her when the words "craft" and "Martha" are used in the same sentence.  And who are those people, anyway?  Downright Un-American.  Just kidding.  I've had a rum cocktail & I'm feisty at the moment.

So, I'm fully in love with how my zombie pumpkins turned out.  Granted, they're not exactly menacing.  They're more whimsical and kind of cute. - Which is why I was compelled to add blood dripping from their maws.  I came up with a full back story for them, too.  See, they look all innocent and sweet with their happy, but also somewhat maniacal faces.  That's to lure you closer.  And that's when they strike and gnaw your face off.  Don't be fooled by the smile.  Those blood shot zombie eyes are of the UNDEAD.  Tread carefully.

So, this pumpkin craft was pretty straight forward and not hard to pull off.  The nice part about this project was that there wasn't any major carving, thereby avoiding the inevitable messy pumpkin guts that go hand in hand with jack-o-lantern type crafts. Then again, no toasted pumpkin seeds to snack on, either.  Booo.

My inspiration and step-by-step instructions can be found here, but I'll give you a run-down of what I did, too.  I used ping pong balls for the eyes, and you could also buy those chocolate eyeballs they sell this time of year. - But, I think it's more fun to DIY the eyes.

Plus, the chocolate eyes that were on sale at the Exchange were smaller than what I wanted.  I was going for big, bug-eyed pumpkins.  My supply list ended up being plain white ping pong balls, red and yellow craft paint, red and black sharpie markers, a red plastic bead to create the über red pupils, and a hot glue gun.

Here's the gist:  use a screw and the end of a pair of scissors to poke and widen a hole in the ping pong ball in order to recess the red bead a little bit, paint a yellow circle around the hole, and go to town with the black and red sharpies and red craft paint to make the eyes as zombie-like as you want them.  Once the ping pong balls are all painted up and dry, use a hot glue gun to attach the red bead inside the hole.  Voilà!  Zombie eyes.

I was digging making
the blood shot eyes.
So much fun to create!

As for cutting out the eyes on the pumpkin, I just estimated the size of the circle I would need and cut out the eye holes accordingly.  Once all the the paint and glue dried, I used the hot glue gun to secure the ping pong ball eyes into the eye socket holes I cut into the pumpkin. 

The mouth template on Martha's site is no longer active, so you kind of have to freestyle it.  Whatever your imagination envisions.  I penciled out a few mouth designs on a piece of paper that were similar to the picture of the sample pumpkins on her page. - That's kind of the look I was going for.

As the instructions say, I taped the template for the mouth onto the pumpkin, and used the tip of a screw to poke through all along the outline to transfer the design.  Then I carefully cut out the mouth and called it done.

It was a fun little Halloween craft!  Here are my finished Zombie Pumpkins, front and center on my little table in front of the house:

I love how the wider yellow eyes and tiny, jagged mouth make the one on the right look completely unstable. He'll eat you. - RAAAH! I almost want to go to town on the big one's mouth.  He needs to be more menacing.  Maybe I'll do a little reconstructive surgery on him.

If you're looking for a fun take on pumpkin decorating, this is a good one to give a shot!  You might also like the vampire pumpkins I did last Halloween.  Check them out here.  They're even easier than these zombie pumpkins. - No paint involved.  Here's to another season of all things harvesty.  And cheers to the Queen of all crafts.  And insider trading.  Just kidding - I love Martha!

Ta-ta for now.

BRAINS.