Pre-Drawn and Pre-Carved Pumkins

It will be interesting to learn if anyone happens to pop into my blog here for a new idea, as it has been a looooong time since I posted one. But I've been saving this GREAT PUMPKIN idea for just such a month as October, which starts tomorrow.

Pumpkin farms, garden centers, swanky boutiques, craft fair artisans, and perhaps one day a few plain ole' produce aisles, will profit from this one. If you know any of those types, please pass this on.

Put some fabulous jack-o-lantern designs, of the caliper shown in magazines but which most of us can't really do ourselves, right there on the pumpkins.

There should be everything from a row of traditional geometric faces that smile and menace, to the super-creative non-facial kind of pumpkins I see from the likes of the Martha Stewarts of the world: cornucopia, fall leaves, a big branchy tree, etc.

I've often tried for a "different" sort of pumpkin display in the autumn. I've bought special carving tools and tried a couple how-to techniques. But to be done right, these things need a special kind of Halloween devotion I just don't seem to possess. Really I just want the roasted seeds, I think. Get that sea salt out. Once I even carved a supposed chrysanthemum where you don't really carve in, you just sort of whittle away at the various layers of pumpkin shell and flesh to create a soft array of colors and depth, but if you're me it really doesn't turn out how it looked in the picture after several minutes of trying and so you just go ahead and carve a couple of evil eyes in the middle while the seeds are in the oven, grab a candle and call it a night.

And then you say out loud, for at least the twentieth time, "Someone should print some really great looking carving lines on pumpkins that you can buy and do yourself. Like paint by number kits or sewing patterns. And for those of us in a hurry (like maybe it was a really busy month and we couldn't get to the pumpkin buying until the last moment, and now the doorbell will be ringing soon and the candy is not yet in the bowl, and the spells and hexes are not fully cast and put on, and the eye of newt is still rare as anything in that still lukewarm cauldron, let alone the jack o lantern being carved) someone should actually sell pre-carved pumpkins! And they should make sure there is the bag of toasted seeds from that pumpkin attached to that sale."

You know, I would love to buy a Cat in the Hat face or the Scarecrow or a haunted house, or a gypsy. Oh, yes, that's it. I must have a gyspy: her gaudy face and hoop earrings and dark hands carved on one giant pumpkin, with another small white pumpkin below it, to represent the crystal ball. And on that crystal ball, a pencil thin carving of a little foggy bog, with a very small BOO! for those special children who bother to look close enough whilst waiting for their Willy Wonka treats, bags open, polite anticipation on their faces while I at the same time wait for them to say the words. Because they don't get the treats without the words, that's my trick.

And they don't get any Almond Joy, period, as those are mine.

Yes, someone DO this one! This could really fly. Like the Great Pumpkin.