I’ve been visiting ExtremePumpkins.com off and on for a few years. Tom Nardone takes the art of pumpkin carving, simplifies it, adds power tools, and a lot of thinking outside of the box and really does some wonderful work on pumpkins. He knows a bit of danger = fun. You’ve probably seen his work too in one of those emails that gets forwarded all over the place that just clog your inbox. It probably had the subject line of “Check out these pumpkins” or “These are really cool pumpkins” or something along those lines. If you’ve seen pictures of any crazy or insanely carved pumpkins, you’ve seen this guy’s work.

He also knows that using stencils and pumpkin carving kits are for sissys. I know that not everyone is an artist, but you don’t have to be to carve a cool pumpkin. Stencils, while neat, do not yield a unique pumpkin.

I just found out he has a book based off his site where he gives more detailed instructions on carving these amazing pumpkins. “But Big Fez, you just said that using stencils isn’t unique? How is using a pumpkin carving howto book any different?”

Glad you asked.

He gives you the techniques on doing these carvings. It is up to you to do it. And since you aren’t totally following patterns, your creation will be unique. Inspired by his work, sure, but truly unique for your pumpkin. When you use a stencil, there is no variation. If you do vary a stencil, your carving won’t look like what it is supposed to or you could end up with a big hole in a place that needed a solid piece. Your sucky stencil pumpkin will suck more and the neighborhood kids will laugh you at you.

Last year I did a variation of the pumpkin he has here on the cover. The big pumpkin eating the little one. Kids loved my pumpkin. Adults loved my pumpkin. The teenagers who were much too old to trick or treat, but more likely to soap my windows and egg my house if I didn’t give them candy loved my pumpkin. People took pictures with my pumpkin. Now how many pictures do you take with the neighborhood pumpkins? Thought so. My pumpkin kicked butt. It kicked so much butt that if it came to life and could run around, it would have gone to all of the other neighborhood houses and smashed their pumpkins on the sidewalk. My neighbors’ pumpkins feared my pumpkin.

So anyway, go check out this book. It’s cheap and you could get it in before this weekend if you ordered it soon.

Tags: diy, food //