Make: Projects

Stencil Carving

Design spooktacular effects for pumpkins.

  • By Wendy Frauenfelder
  • Category: Home
  • Difficulty: Easy
Stencil Carving

Pumpkin stencil carving is one of those projects where the results far outweigh the effort. The materials required are cheap, minimal, and easy to find. And luckily, a knack for creativity is optional because you can find dozens of varied stencils online for free.

Steps

Step #1: Prepare the pumpkin and stencil.

Next
Stencil Carving
  • After you’ve chosen your pumpkin, you’ll need to find or create a stencil (search for “pumpkin stencil” online. I found a couple I liked and combined them into one design, seen here). If you’re making your own, just remember that all the parts that won’t be carved out need to connect.
  • Cut a lid in your pumpkin and gut it. If the walls are thick, use a serving spoon to scrape away some of the wall where your design will be carved.

Step #2: Fit the stencil onto the pumpkin.

Next
  • Note where your stencil needs to curve to fit the surface. At these points, cut V-shaped notches into the stencil. Tape the design on the pumpkin, bringing the edges of the V’s together so that the stencil fits snugly onto the pumpkin.

Step #3: Copy the pattern onto the pumpkin.

Next
Stencil Carving
  • Punch pinholes around all the edges of the shapes to be cut out. Make the pinholes closely spaced where the cutouts are small and/or detailed.

Step #4: Carve your design.

Next
Stencil Carving
  • Remove the pattern and begin carving. Carve small areas first to preserve stability of the pumpkin wall.
  • Aim the carving tool straight into the pumpkin — angling it can compromise the look of your design.
  • Go slowly on long cuts to avoid getting off track.

Step #5: Let it glow.

Stencil Carving
  • Stock up on candles to show off your masterpiece.
  • If you don’t like your design wilting along with your pumpkin, try an artificial pumpkin (try http://www.funkins.com) next year so you can admire it forever.

Conclusion

This project first appeared in Make: Halloween Special Edition, page 63.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: