Halloween Chicken Pumpkin Template

Every year, we carve a unique pumpkin for Halloween. In the past, we've carved zombies, spiders, dragons and all manner of ghostly and ghoulish things. Never, have we done a chicken pumpkin. So this year, we're getting our priorities right and celebrating the flock with a chicken pumpkin.

This particular design is quite easy since  you only have to carve out four relatively large sized pieces to complete the design. 

If you'd would like to carve this design, you can download a PDF of the template and print it out on your home printer. The template will measure about 8" across so you should buy a large sized pumpkin to carve. The best ones will have smooth skin and shallow or no ribs.

Total project time is about 30 minutes.

Materials:

• Thin serrated blade knife or pumpkin carving kit 
• Duct tape or masking tape
• Large pumpkin
• Metal spoon
• ChickenWaterer.com pumpkin template

Carving Instructions:

1. Print out the template from: http://bit.ly/1OYcMdl

2. Clean out the center of the pumpkin as you would with any Jack-o-lantern -- cut open the top and scoop out the inside with a metal spoon.

3. Tape the template to the pumpkin using masking or duct tape. This will allow you to more easily transfer the design to the surface of the pumpkin. To do this, trim off the excess paper that is outside of the boundaries of the design and make some slits on the template so you can get it to conform to the overall shape of the pumpkin.

4. Trace over the outline using a ballpoint pen. Press down hard so that the pen penetrates the paper and leaves a mark on the pumpkin skin. Some sections will show ink and other will only show an indentation where the pen embossed a line into the pumpkin's skin. 

5. Remove the template and draw over the embossed lines so that the whole design is fully inked and the lines are easy to see. 

6. Mark four "X" on the pumpkin in the four sections of the design that are black on the template. These are the parts you want to cut out.

7. Carefully cut out the four marked sections. 

This pumpkin is fairly easy to do. Below are some other designs we've carved in the past if you're looking for inspiration and don't want to do a chicken Jack-o-lantern. 

Please note that these other designs are far more difficult to execute, so if you decide make something like this, set aside a few hours for the project. 

Other Examples

Graves with family names on gravestones

Hangman & Tree

Grim Reaper & Coffin

Dragon

Spider

Zombies