The Cannibalistic Pumpkin

I have always loved the idea of a pumpkin eating other pumpkins because it looks really cool and is not very common. In this instructable, I am going to show you how to make a cannibal pumpkin, so you can 1-up all of your neighbors by having the most awesome pumpkin.

In order to create your pumpkin cannibal you will need to gather the right materials. This kind of goes without saying, but you will need a pretty big pumpkin and one or two much smaller pumpkins. Next you will need to collect the right cutting materials. You may need to purchase a pumpkin carving kit. You will only need to buy this once, and then you can use it for many of the years that follow. In the pumpkin carving kit there was a scooper for the insides of the pumpkins, two cutting utensils, one for larger cuts and the other one for more precise cuts, and finally there was a marker that acted like a dry erase marker for pumpkins. We also cut up a trash bag to work on because this does get pretty messy.

In this step we are going to cut a circular hole with the bigger blade on top of the pumpkins around the stem. We then use the scooper to scoop out all of the insides of the pumpkins. Save some of the insides we will be using them later in the project. We then repeat those two steps for the two smaller pumpkins. In order to scoop out the insides of the two smaller pumpkins you may need to use a spoon instead of the scooper because the hole will not be big enough. On the pumpkin caps you can cut off the bottom layer, and that will probably be the easiest way to clean it. Look at the image shown if that confused you.

I used the marker to draw on my design. You can use stencils if you would like, but we just decided to draw our own design on there. This is a very important part. MAKE THE MOUTH BIG ENOUGH FOR THE LITTLE PUMPKINS TO FIT IN IT. If you do not do this your whole idea could be ruined, so measure twice before you decide to cut. Also, you may want to make the end teeth on the bottom jaw a little bit longer than the rest. This is so the teeth will go through the little pumpkins better. You can change the design as much as you want before you cut, just use a wet paper towel or a wet rag to get rid of the unwanted lines.

It does not matter what part of the pumpkin you start carving first. Just make sure you follow the lines as best as you can. For smaller cuts and corners, I would recommend using the smaller blade because it is a little more precise. After cutting the mouth and eyes I erased the nose with a wet rag. I just didn't think the first one looked as good. After you cut, use the wet rag or a wet paper towel to wipe away any marker that may be left on the pumpkin. After you have carved the big pumpkin it is time to start on those little ones. You'll need to draw your design on the little ones then cut again.

For the little pumpkins we are going to need to put an additional hole in the bottom. This is so we can place the little pumpkin on one of the teeth of the bigger pumpkin. One problem that came up was that the big pumpkin was too thick, and the bottom hole of the little pumpkin was too small, so it could not fit. To fix this you just need to cut the end tooth horizontally. It will help to look at the pictures. You need to cut enough off so the tooth will fit inside the bottom hole of the little pumpkin. Now put the little pumpkin on the end tooth so the end tooth comes through the bottom hole of the pumpkin. Then put the cap with the stem back on and that side is good to go. Now we need to do the other side. Again, we cut the bottom tooth on the other end of the mouth, so the other little pumpkin could fit in there. However, we wanted the little pumpkin on the right side to stick out a little like the big pumpkin is taking a bite out of it. In order to this we cut another hole on the back of the little pumpkin. This hole is on the exact opposite side where we cut out the face. This hole will catch on to the top tooth to keep the little pumpkin in place as it hangs outside the cannibal pumpkin's mouth.

For the final touches we are going to add some of the pumpkin guts to the outside to make it look like the little pumpkins are bleeding and vomiting. The pumpkin guts are what we took out of the pumpkin earlier. Put as much pumpkin guts as you want around the mouth of the big pumpkin and coming out of the smaller pumpkins. Finally, we have our pumpkin cannibal.