Carving
Jack-O-Lanterns for Halloween is a tradition
that goes far back in history. What says
Halloween more than a Jack-O-Lantern glowing on
a dark night? You'll find history, carving tips
and much more here.
Dark Decorations
Create your own creepy decorations for Halloween night.
Hardcopy Showcase
Reviews of Halloween
related videos, books, zines and music.
Tricks and Treats
Check out our growing
cookbook of Halloween
recipes.
MAKING YOUR OWN
STENCILS
The first step is to select a
piece of clipart that you like and would be useable as a carving stencil. What we will do
is remove any pieces that we don't want in the stencil. These instructions are for the
graphic shown below and will vary depending on the image you choose, but the idea will be the
same. All black areas are those that will be cut out of the pumpkin, while everything in
white will stay.
STEP #1
First open the image or piece of clipart in
your favorite paint program. If the image isn't already in RGB mode convert it to RGB
mode. This will allow you to re-scale the image later with better
definition.
STEP #2
Using the paint bucket tool, dump the color
white into areas that will not be cut out of the pumpkin.
STEP #3
Fill in any area that is open to the
surrounding white color, If you don't, when you dump in the black
color it will fill in everything white.
STEP #4
Using the appropriate color (white or black),
remove any part of the image that you don't want.
STEP #5
Crop off the excess border leaving about an inch or so. Set
the paint programs measurement type to inches instead of pixels and resize the graphic to
a size that will fit on the selected pumpkin.
STEP #6
Now you can print the stencil from your printer. If
you need the stencil to be larger that what your printer can print, you can take it to a
copy shop and enlarge it. Carefully trim of the excess paper leaving a half inch border.
Your custom stencil is now ready to be
attached to the pumpkin you've selected for it.
See
our page on using stencils
to cut the pattern out.
