Welcome To The 94th Masterpiece Monday!

  

 Floating Image Carving 101

 Hi Everyone!
I usually don't carve pumpkins in the middle of October, but I wanted to do an early tutorial so you can try this for Halloween~if you want to. I certainly didn't invent this technique and there are lot's of pictures of them out there on the internet.

 I always look for a pumpkin with as flat of a surface as I can find, it's easier to carve on.

 I put the "inner-eds" into a strainer.  I'll explain why in my next post! I like to cut the lid in a square shape, because it's easier, but it doesn't matter if you like it to be round.

 I used a knife to cut away the inner-eds. 

 I used an ice cream scooper to scrape away the loose strings. Then I use the scooper and a grapefruit spoon to scoop out the rest of the pumpkin.

 I made a stencil on my computer, but I printed it out in pale pink to save on my black ink.  Even though is looks really light, I can see it well enough to cut out the letters.   In the past I just drew on large block letters with a regular pen directly onto the pumpkin.  The latter is the easier way to do this, but I wanted to make a fancier looking font and I just can't do that free hand.

 I simply covered the surface of the pumpkin with glue stick and applied the stencil. Then I used a paring knife to CAREFULLY trace the outline for the letters, making sure not to cut all the way through.

 I removed the stencil and CAREFULLY carved the outer skin away around each letter, again, without cutting all the way through.

 Next I carved out the shape of the background and the rest of the skin I that wanted to remove, without, you guessed it, cutting all the way through.

 I'm pretty sure that you've already gotten the fact that I'm not cutting through all the way right?

 The whole point is to remove the skin and leave the flesh as thin as you can without making any holes.  If the flesh is too thick, the candle won't be able to glow through properly.   It'll still look nice in the day time though.

 My favorite tools for digging around the letters or picture are a vegetable peeler and a grapefruit spoon. A regular spoon will work too. When I was finished, I removed the glue stick residue with a damp washcloth. 

I prefer to use flameless candles for various obvious reasons.  I like to use the votive size, but I didn't have any, so I just stuck a flameless pillar in side ways.  I think it works better too, like a flash light.  I guess necessity is the mother of invention after all.

And here we go! I don't know if the flame shows up well in the picture, it was still daylight when took this.

Anywhoo, There's really no limit to what you can write or draw and it's super easy and fun to do!

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2. Feel free to link up any of your masterpiece's whether they're crafts, recipes, decor, thrifty finds, etc. (Please no direct links to etsy).

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Most of all, have fun!