My *Asterisk* Life

On the way to Halloween! I finally finished decorating. I wonder how long my spider webs will last before my cat eats them all…Unfortunately a basement flood (and not even from Sandy) ruined a lot of my outdoor decor. That’s okay, though. That just means at the end of the season I can go nuts and get what’s on sale.

Last year, Matt and I carved some foam pumpkins. We figured it’d be less messy and we could keep them forever. We used the same tools that came with a regular carving kit. We Carved a haunted house and a werewolf. This year, I discovered the hot knife tool.

The hot knife made foam pumpkin carving one hundred times easier.

The hot knife is an electrically heated blade, and you can find it in the wood crafting section of the craft store. I actually had to go to Michael’s twice to get the hot knife because it was sold out the first time.

 The knife cuts through the foam like butter, and the edges are nice and smooth. I even went back and cleaned up last year’s foam pumpkins.

Make sure you have a glass cutting board to cut on, just in case you drop the knife. (You won’t burn glass). First cut out the hole in the bottom for the battery candle. Cut a little smaller than you think. You want the candle to be snug, plus you can always cut more out but you can’t put the foam back.

Tape your pattern to the pumpkin and use the scoring tools to score the pattern onto the pumpkin.

Carve the pattern with the hot knife. Don’t use a sawing motion, just guide the knife across the pattern.

Now I want to  carve more foam pumpkins! I was thinking of doing our home address and/or our last name for outside.