Looking for a way to briefly escape the stress and angst brought on by midterms?
Pumpkin carving is the perfect study break to temporarily relieve any student of their midterm woes. Oct. 31 is right around the corner, and there’s no better way of getting into the Halloween spirit than by carving a frightening Jack-O-Lantern!
It’s easy, fun, and doable under any student budget.
Are you unsure of how to make a Jack-O-Latern because your parents didn’t trust you with sharp knives as a kid and you were deprived of the childhood experience of pumpkin carving? I know I was.
Well it’s never too late to learn and by following these five simple steps, you can create the perfect Jack-O-Lantern.
1) Buy a pumpkin. Walk to your nearest grocery store or go to one of the many pumpkin patches that Ottawa has to offer. If you feel like a challenge, pick out the most warped and saddest looking sucker you can find and try to turn it into a masterpiece. The more misshaped, the better.
2) Cut out the top of the pumpkin around the stem. Be careful, knives are sharp.
3) Scoop out the flesh, pulp, and seeds inside the pumpkin. You can use a plaster scraper or fleshing tool to hollow out the pumpkin, but what’s the fun in that? If your hands are not slimy and are missing an orange tinge to them at the end of this process, than you have done this step wrong.
4) Carve the pumpkin. If you feel like being a perfectionist, you can draw the design on your pumpkin first so you have an outline of where to carve. Or, just start carving and hope for the best.
5) Sit a candle inside of your pumpkin, turn your lights off, and BOOM! That round orange thing that you started off with has become an epic, glowing masterpiece.
Put it on your doorstep, in your windowsill, or anywhere that it can be seen by others to make them jealous of your Michelangelo-esque artistic abilities.
