How to carve a Halloween pumpkin, by Yohei Yasui

I've spent halloween in my home country Japan, the US and now England.  We don't really celebrate Halloween in Japan but in the US it is completely crazy, there are kids everywhere running around shouting 'trick or treat.'  Halloween in England is very quiet.....until the night time when all the parties start.

In the UK it is tradition to carve pumpkins with scary faces for Halloween, here's how you do it;

STEP 1:  First, I looked carefully and decided which side to use.

STEP 2: Secondly I cut up the lid off of the back of the pumpkin. I did this because the face looked better than cutting the top.

STEP 3: Then comes the sticky smelly part which is to scrape out the seeds. People often start throwing seeds to each other in this step.

STEP 4: Next, I draw a face for my lantern. I will recommend not using white board markers  because my hand became all black in the end.

STEP 5: Finally, you start carving the face. However, the pumpkin was very soft and thicker than I have imagined and was very difficult to curve small parts.

STEP 6: At the end you put in a candle inside and here I got my very own scarry Jack-o-lantern.

The finished product! 

There has been a lot of Halloween fun happening in the college including pumpkin carving competitions, pop-up cards, decorations and dressing up.  For pictures and more information on what's been happening at UCLan FoC take a look at our facebook page.