Beginner: Bat Silhouette
* No special tools required
1.) Begin by cutting off the top of your pumpkin and scooping out the interior. Save the seeds if you'd like to roast them later.
2.) Draw an outline of a bat in washable marker onto the flattest surface of the pumpkin.
3.) Maybe if you make more little points on the wings it will look more like a bat, and less like a boomerang.
4.) That wasn't your fault, the ridge got in the way. Just take a wet paper towel and wipe away that line and redraw...you know what? It's gonna be fine. It'll be abstract.
5.) Using a sharp paring or carving knife, begin cutting along the lines you've drawn.
6.) Wow, you should have gone with the paring knife, this is really hard to maneuver.
7.) But now that you're using the smaller knife, the ears don't even look like anything. They look like head zits. That's ridiculous. If you use the bigger knife just for the ears...
8.) Oh, great, now you've broken off a massive chunk of pumpkin. You know what though? It'll be fine. Just carve ears above this and pretend that's where you wanted the head to end all along.
9.) No, that's just weird. It looks like a raggedy top hat, or a shitty map of Texas. Maybe just make the rest of the bat bigger, too.
10.) Jesus Christ, why is the whole front of the pumpkin collapsing?
11.) Maybe if you put the seeds back inside it will be like one of those "barfing pumpkin" things you've seen on Pinterest. Those are kind of funny. Whatever.
Intermediate: Grinning Skull
* Basic pumpkin-carving kit required
1.) Begin by cutting off the top of your pumpkin and scooping out the interior. Save the seeds if you'd like to roast them later.
2.) Print the attached pattern and transfer to pumpkin.
3.) Wait, how are you supposed to transfer it? Maybe by writing really hard through the lines with a pen? This doesn't even fit on the goddammed pumpkin. Just... I don't know, guesstimate.
4.) Oh boy, that does not look like how it did in the picture. And did you somehow forget one of the eyes? Hurry, draw in an eye. Just anywhere -- wherever it will fit.
5.) Realize that your ex must have taken the pumpkin carving kit with him when he moved out. What the hell, why would he do that? Like he's going to be carving a lot of pumpkins now that he's single again?
6.) Pour yourself a drink.
7.) Try carving some triangle eyes and a smile and call yourself a "fan of the classics."
Advanced: Witch with Black Cat and Night Sky
* Full pumpkin-carving kit required
1.) Begin by cutting off the top of your pumpkin and scooping out the interior. Who are you, Martha Stewart? Throw that crap away.
2.) Wait a second, even if you could "transfer the pattern onto the pumpkin," which, let's be honest, you can't, where are you supposed to carve? Do those swirls of air just magically suspend themselves in the middle of the pumpkin? This is complete bullshit.
3.) Why are you even doing this? You don't even like pumpkins. And now your hands are covered with orange slime, and it's somehow worked its way down behind the stove, and you can't even get a good grip on your wine glass, WHY ARE YOU STILL DOING THIS?
4.) What, is your self worth somehow tied up with fooling people you don't even know about your holiday cheer? So you're not a pumpkin artist, so what? Who actually JUDGES people based on this crap?
5.) You don't even have plans this Halloween. And face facts, you're too old for this holiday, anyway. This is a holiday for the young, and the not-childless.
6.) It was Jim who liked all this Halloween shit, anyway.
7.) So really, it's not fair of you to blame him for taking the pumpkin carving kit.
8.) Pour yourself another drink and turn the porch light off so kids won't ring your doorbell. Jesus, this was the worst of fucking ideas.