There are some seriously good pumpkin carvers out there. You’ve seen them: the ones with precise knife techniques that even shave the top layer of the pumpkin to create different textures and depth. Well, guess what? We are not those people. Far from it.
That doesn’t stop us from carving every year. Instead, we tap into our creative juices to “carve” a pumpkin with a cool concept rather than getting over our heads with trying something awesome we saw that’s actually way out of our capability. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been there and have a pumpkin carving Pinterest fail of your own.
Well, we have good news: our idea isn’t hard or time consuming, but it is hilarious. Zombie baby pumpkins were somehow inspired by this pin, but are of course much cooler and creepier. I mean, it’s like the pumpkins gave birth to them, the way they’re bursting out so violently. Our BFF Nicole joined us and we each made our own pumpkin with its own style and concept. We developed a strong bond with our individual babies.
This one is my baby. I opted for a simple “busting out of the top” scenario. It took the least amount of time out of all the pumpkins, so if you want something with minimal effort required this positioning is your best bet.
This one is Alyssa’s. She opted for a full-on plank positioning for her baby. To make it happen, she popped off her babies limbs and glued them to the pumpkin.
This little one is Rachel’s. She found a very weirdly shaped pumpkin she used to position her baby so that it’s literally diving out in a face-up position. The weirder the pumpkin the better really.
This is our friend Nicole’s. It’s probably my favourite because of the way it’s reaching out (I mean I love them all and are partial to my own of course). It’s just dying for human flesh.
Time to make your own. We’ve broken out the instructions below, but you’re really only limited to your own imagination.
- Baby doll (reasonably priced) – We used this one and a set of twins (not available online) at Walmart, but Amazon has a great option here (and this one is hilarious)
- Pumpkin – make sure it jives with the size of your baby
- Dark purple or charcoal eyeshadow
- White face paint and white or off white eye shadow
- Fake blood (optional but encouraged)
- Carving knife
- Toothpicks (potentially)
- Glue gun (potentially)
Start by zombify-ing your baby. We started by using white face paint to cover the eyes and then setting the face paint (so it doesn’t smudge and has more of a matte finish) with white eyeshadow. Then we used a dark purple eye shadow around their eyes to give them more of an undead look. Easy right?
Next, it’s time to decide the exit point of your baby, which will basically determine its overall position and how you’ll go about putting it inside the pumpkin. For some of our babies we actually had to cut or pop off certain limbs to make it work (for Alyssa’s she actually used a glue gun to reattach her babies head to it’s body once it was placed inside the pumpkin – otherwise the head just wouldn’t fit through). From there, cut the necessary hole in your pumpkin, remove at least some of the pumpkins guts and seeds and pull your baby through the hole or cut the limbs accordingly (I know this sounds so savage).
Once your baby is situated inside the pumpkin, take some of the guts and arrange it around your baby and the hole in the pumpkin. As a final step, drip fake blood (or you can use the adhesive fake blood splatters like Nicole and Rachel did) around the baby as desired.
Note: because of the use of pumpkin guts and fake blood, these pumpkins don’t have a super long shelf life. Make them no earlier than a couple of days prior to Halloween.
We created a highly fitting and equally crushable cocktail for our pumpkin carving session. Spoiler alert: it’s got pumpkin beer. Check it out here.
Looking for other spooky activities, games or cocktails? Check out some of our other ideas and recipes below:
- Hocus Pocus Movie Drinking Game
- How to Throw an Epic Halloween Party
- The Ultimate List of Halloween Cocktails and Shots
- Our 31 Favourite Scary Movies
- How to Host an Addams Family Dinner Party
- Scream Movie Drinking Game
- How to Host a Virtual Pumpkin Carving Contest
- Host a Halloween Trivia Night (with a free 50-question download!)
This playlist is packed with Halloween classics, which will totally get you in spirit for pumpkin carving.