Mehndi MadnessTM Blog
KrysteenThis year for Halloween I was inspired by my first year as a henna artist. Keeping myself busy in the off season, I carved a henna design on my pumpkin! It came out pretty cool if I do say so myself, but of course came with some challenges along the way.
When coming up with what I wanted to do with my pumpkin, I had a few ideas. I was thinking of painting or even just doing henna directly on top. But I decided to take a challenge and carve it. I knew since I wanted to do lots of detail and intricate patterns this might be a problem and was. Although I winged it most of the time and started carving I would recommend having a plan and drawing it out first. I tried 
using a regular knife at first but it was a little too big; after chatting with my roommate she gave me a serrated small knife pumpkin carving tool (found at most grocery or craft stores this time of year.) I started with the big flower and worked my way out. If you noticed that some of the pieces are actually detached from the pumpkin and put back together like a puzzle. I cut out the big pieces and then from the main piece I would shave slightly more off so the piece would fit in loosely. This helped when you put it back together, the light will shine through even the parts where you put it back. This way I was able to do things like double lines. My main problem was sometimes it was hard to control where I was cutting since it's a saw like motion you have to use and I even accidently cut out some parts that weren't supposed to be cut. Luckily there is enough detail that it is hardly noticeable. The whole project took me 3 sittings about 5+ hours considering I didn't do much planning on the design part and had to figure out problems along the way. Try carving your own henna pumpkin and have a Happy Halloween! 
