Halloween Pumpkin Decorating: It's Frankenstein!

Autumn is almost here - bringing brightly colored falling leaves, wonderfully welcome falling temperatures, and the fun holiday of Halloween. While carved glowing jack-o-lanterns are a popular decorating tradition, there are other things you can do with your pumpkins rather than scooping out the insides and carefully creating a face or pattern on the front. One idea is to make a Frankenstein pumpkin.

You will need the following materials to create your monster:

A medium to large sized pumpkin about 12 to 15 inches, either wide or tall

Old newspapers or paper towels

Poster paint in bright green and a paintbrush

A package of multi-colored foam sheets (2 sheets each of red, black, green, blue, white, and yellow)

Scissors

A package of large wiggle eyes

Two 1 ¼ inch nuts with short bolts

Hot glue gun and glue sticks or craft glue

A flower pot that the pumpkin will sit on without falling off

Cover your workspace with the newspapers or paper towels. Remove the stalk from the top and clean any dirt off of the pumpkin. Apply the poster paint all over the pumpkin and set it aside to dry. If you like, you can paint the flower pot green as well.

While you are waiting, open the package of foam sheets and pull out one sheet of red. Open the package of eyes and take out two. Place one eye on the red sheet of foam and trace around it slightly larger than the eye itself. Move the eye to a different area on the sheet and trace around it again. The sizes of the circles on the foam do not have to be exactly the same. Put the eye back with the other one. Cut out the red foam circles and glue the wiggle eyes to the centers. Use the rest of the foam sheet to cut out a mouth for your Frankenstein.

Now take one sheet of the black foam out of the package. Cut out a large spiky pattern along the length of the black for the hair. Use the rest to cut out two thick strips for the eyebrows.

Take out one sheet of green foam and cut out a rather large circle or oval on one half. Cut the shape in half to make Frankenstein's ears. On the other half of the foam, cut out a large triangle. This will be used to make the nose.

Once the pumpkin is dry, wrap the black foam around the top and glue it in place. Add the eyes and eyebrows, mouth, and ears. Fold the triangle in half and glue it to the pumpkin face, or glue it on flat. Attach the nuts and bolts on either side below the ears. Put the pumpkin on top of the flower pot and proudly display your very own Frankenstein monster pumpkin!