Since tomorrow is Halloween, and it’s a Saturday, a lot of you will be carving your pumpkins.  Please, don’t carve a boring one.  We’re Dad-o-matic dads.  We don’t carve boring pumpkins.  You may think it is difficult to carve a cool pumpkin, but it’s not.  Like most things, all you need are the right set of tools, and the instructions.

Today, it’s really easy to find both.  You can usually pick up a pumpkin carving kit like this one at your grocery store.  I like the Pumpkin Masters one (No FTC, I wasn’t compensated to say that), but any booklet of templates with these basic tools will do.

There are tips about how to pick the pumpkin, store it, and great tips about carving one with the provided templates.  Read the tips and try it.  They rate the templates on difficulty, and I suggest starting with an easy one.  Any of them will be better than the triangle eyed one you may have had in mind.

If you have small children, you can find templates of their favorite characters on-line for free.  Just type pumpkin+template+[insert character name here] into Google.  That’s how I found this Dora template.  Nick Jr’s website has Dora, Backyardigans, and others, free for the printing.

I really want you to try this, so here is how to do it.

First, print out the template and gut your pumpkin.  You may have to adjust the size of the template depending on the size of your pumpkin. If you have an all-in-one printer, you can do this easily by making a copy and reducing the size.

Then you tape the template onto the pumpkin.  I find if I get the paper wet, it makes it easier to tape, but be careful when you do this.

Then you transfer the pattern to the pumpkin.  Take the little tool that looks like a fan, and poke little holes along the lines.  The middle spike is longer than the others, and this makes it easier to do the tight spots.

When your done with this, remove the template and you are ready to carve.

To make the pattern easier to see, I suggest you sprinkle some flour onto your pumpkin.  Spread it around and wipe it off.  The flour fills all the tiny holes and leaves you with a pattern that you can see.

Cut away the pieces from the center, out.  Remove large parts in sections.  Use a sawing motion and don’t try to do too much in one pass.  Small cuts is what you are looking for.  When you are done, you get something that you can barely tell is your pattern, like this.

When you put a candle in there though, everything becomes clear.  You will get something like this.

A few tips that will make your experience easier.

1. Cut the pattern from the center, out.
2. Don’t try to cut out and remove big pieces at once.  Cut them out in sections.
3. It is easier to push the cut away pieces into the pumpkin than remove them outward.
4. HAVE FUN

Leave yourself about an hour, especially if you have never done it before.  Believe me, you can do this.  The impress factor far outweighs the effort on this one.  Whether you use a pattern from the book or download one from the Internet, definitely get the carving tools.

So no more boring pumpkins!  Your kids will be so happy you did this, and you will be too.

Ian is the father of two young daughters  (6, and 22 months old).  He  has a podcast and blogs about starting a business while raising young children at Startup Daddy.