Headless Horseman Pumpkin + Pumpkin Carving Package Giveaway!

It's not officially Halloween time yet at my house until we have carved pumpkins.  It's one of our favorite fall traditions, and one that the kids would never forgive me for if we didn't do!  This year I wanted to carve a special pumpkin, one celebrating my love for my favorite Halloween story of all time... The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  I let the kids carve their own pumpkins this year, too, which was very exciting for them, and a great way for us to spend some quality family time!

The silhouette of the Headless Horseman on his horse in the dark night stuck with me, so I decided to recreate that silhouette on my pumpkin.  To make a detailed design like this I needed some special tools, so I used Pumpkin Masters pumpkin carving tools.  They have TONS of different kits to choose from- a traditional pumpkin carving kit, decorating punches to punch out circles and other shapes from your pumpkin, a surface carving kit, and even a kids carving kit that's easy and safe for kids to use.  Pumpkin Masters even makes strobe lights to light up your pumpkins, instead of using candles that could cause a fire.

Pumpkin carving sure has come a long way since I was young, and would use kitchen knives... yikes!  You can find Pumpkin Masters Kits at Target, Walmart, and your local grocery, drug, and craft store.  I've seen them everywhere this year!

Now you can WIN a set of ALL of the Pumpkin Masters Carving kits I just just mentioned that are pictured above!  Just follow the directions at the bottom of the post to enter to win the prize package, worth over $35!  The contest will end Monday night at midnight, so be sure to enter today to win!

Now on to the Headless Horseman!  To create my Sleepy Hollow pumpkin, I followed a great tip that I found in the Pumpkin Masters carving kit directions.  Instead of carving a circle along the top of the pumpkin to open it up and scoop the flesh out, I carved a hole in the BOTTOM of the pumpkin, where no one would be seeing it.  Then I used the scooping tool to scoop out all of the pumpkin flesh and seeds, and to scrape down the wall of the pumpkin a bit so that it was thinner.  Of course I saved the pumpkin seeds so that I could make some of these delicious pumpkin seed recipes with the kids... yum!

Once the inside of my pumpkin was cleaned out, I painted the entire pumpkin, including the stem, with two black coats of chalkboard paint.  Since I wanted my Headless Horseman silhouette to be black, I painted the pumpkin black with some chalkboard paint I already had.

To draw out my Headless Horseman silhouette, I used this silhouette as a guide.  I drew up my design, taped it to the pumpkin, and traced the lines hard with a pen, so the lines would go through, and proceeded to cut out the area around my design.

When I was almost done, I had a feeling that I should take a picture, even though my pumpkin wasn't finished.  I ignored it, then finally gave in, but only snapped a quick cell phone pic instead of one with my camera.  As I was cleaning out the pumpkin, I totally dropped it.  My Headless Horseman broke into pieces, and could not be saved (as you might have seen on Instagram if you follow me).  I was sooooo sad, but relieved that at least I had one picture of all my hard work, which is the picture you saw above!  So please ignore the imperfections, as I wasn't finished with my pumpkin when the picture was taken...

My kindergartner wanted to make her VERY own pumpkin this year, so I let her carve one of the pumpkins that we grew in our backyard.  It is small and cute, which is just perfect for her!  We cut a hole in the bottom, and scooped out the seeds and pulp.  Pumpkin Masters has an awesome kids set of carving tools, so I let her draw her design onto a piece of paper first, and then she used a special crayon that came with the kit to draw her face on the pumpkin.

We both worked together to cut out her original design, and within 15 minutes she had her very own jack-o-lantern!  Isn't it cute?

She was so proud!

My little guy wanted to get in on the fun, too!

Pumpkin Masters is having an amazing pumpkin carving contest this year, and they are giving away six prizes, one of which is $5,000!  You can share a pic of your carving via Instagram or Twitter with #PumpkinMasters2013, submit via the Facebook app, or send via email to social@pumpkinmasters.com.  The contest runs from October 1-31, and you can check out the contest details and official rules here.

Now for the giveaway!  The winner will receive a Pumpkin Masters Pumpkin Carving Gift Package which includes everything you see in the photo (see the second paragraph of the post for a full description), and is valued at $35.  You can carve years and years worth of pumpkins with all of this product!  The giveaway is open to U.S. residents only, and the giveaway ends on Monday night, October 21st, at midnight.

Follow the easy directions on the widget below to enter now!! The winner will be announced next week on the blog.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck, and happy carving!!

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xo, Laura

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

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