Dress Up Your Halloween Pumpkin

Halloween and pumpkins naturally go together and bring thoughts of costumes, masks and trick or treaters. Pumpkins add color and thoughts of Halloween treats to any decor. Halloween is a time to add fun to family activities by letting the kids get involved in decorating, party planning, and pumpkin carving.

Be creative and come up with some new decoration ideas to add to traditional Halloween costumes, games and pumpkin displays. Turn your lawn into a virtual canvas and turn it into a welcoming or scary place for Halloween. Spooky ghosts, vampires and witches seem to come alive when surrounded with lighted pumpkins. And, jack-o-lanterns light up a not-so-scary Halloween yard with brightly lighted smiles.

Candles placed inside of a carved pumpkin are widely used to give your jack-o-lantern a glow on Halloween night. Surrounded by the fallen leaves in your yard, lighted pumpkins look great. Candles give your jack-o-lantern a welcoming glow, can be risky to use and create fire hazards, and can actually singe and cause your pumpkin to collapse.

A good way to light up pumpkins brightly and safely is by using those small twinkle lights. These holiday lights burn cool and emit an abundance of light. After all, you want your pumpkin creations to be seen by the trick and treaters who come to your door!

Instead of cutting the top of the pumpkin, turn it over and cut out a circle in the bottom of the pumpkin. Scoop out the seeds and some of the pulp before carving the face, and carve a small hole in the top of the pumpkin for ventilation.

Fold a string of the twinkle lights in accordion-fashion and place in a glass jar or container with the lights sticking out the top. Set the jar with the lights on a solid foundation, place your pumpkin over the jar and plug the lights into a nearby outlet. The jack-o-lantern will be lighted brightly! No need to keep re-lighting blown-out candles from breezes, and no worries about fires!

If you don't want to carve the pumpkin, you can draw or paint faces or scenes directly on the shell. Arrange your jack-o-lanterns and surround them with twinkle lights. The spooky Halloween display will be well lighted to welcome trick or treaters.