Young House Love

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Making A Handprint Pumpkin With Baby For Halloween

Even though we made four puffy painted pumpkins already (one for each family member), we knew we couldn’t let Clara’s first Halloween go by without some traditional pumpkin carving action as well. And last weekend’s trip to the pumpkin patch definitely got us in the mood. Here’s the queen of our world flinging her arms out as if to say “I’m the queen of the world!”

Pumpkin Hands Queen

And we even gave our royal highnesss the option to choose her very own pumpkin for herself, and she quickly picked this one out:

Pumpkin Hands Patch

Ok, so maybe “picking out” meant more like touching one of the pumpkins we sat her next to. But she truly couldn’t keep her hands off of that one in particular, so we brought it home for a mere $2 (she’s already thinking frugally!).

We knew we wanted to keep the carving simple, since we don’t always have time for complex around here anymore. And thinking about how Clara was getting all hands-y with the pumpkin back at the patch sparked an idea. All it took was Clara keeping her hand still long enough to get a good tracing.

Pumpkin Hand Tracing

Maybe “good” is a stretch, but we deemed the one of the left “workable enough.”

Pumking Hand Outline

We traced it on cardstock, so cutting it out left me with nice template to trace onto Clara’s pumpkin.

Pumpkin Hand Cut Out

The plan had always been to use two handprints as the pumpkin’s eyes, but the fact that the fingers made them look like feminine eyelashes was a happy accident. An accident we then ran with by adding some puckered lips for the mouth and a wavy hairline at the top. Guess our baby girl is getting a girly pumpkin!

Pumpkin Hand Drawn On

Some careful cutting later, we ended up with this:

Pumpkin Hands Done Light

And with the addition of a flameless candle votive we’ve got our traditional jack-o-lantern with a first-year-of-parenthood twist. Simple, but we quite like it.

Pumpkin Hands Done Lit Up

Oh, and speaking of Halloween, check out how we’re embarrassing dressing our kiddos this year for their first hurrah together.

Halloween Costumes

Yup, Clara’s a hamburger (in honor of her bro) and Burger’s reprising his role as a hot dog to complete the theme. Both are store bought (Clara’s from Old Navy, Burger’s from Target). Somehow I feel like our little lady’s gonna give us a hard time about this when she’s 16…

Psst- We announced our big winner for this week’s contest at the end of Monday’s original contest post. And Ikea actually surprised us by tripling the number of $350 gift cards they’re giving away. Click here to see if you’re part of that lucky trio!

Comments

  2. Cara says

    OMG! This post was off the richter on the cuteness scale! Thanks for a good laugh this morning. Yeah, Clara is gonna roll her eyes at that pic in a few years, but I bet she will appreciate it when she’s 25 :)

    Reply

  4. Allison says

    Oh, that girly pumpkin is ADORABLE! That turned out quite nicely and shows that simple is often the way to go!

    And your grilled goods are looking quite stunning in their costumes as well! I’m looking forward to seeing my nieces and nephews all dressed up this weekend!

    Reply

  5. Elizabeth says

    Sooooo cute! That top picture is adorable. The pumpkin loos really good with the flameless candle.

    And those IKEA folks knew what they were doing, even though I didn’t win the giftcard I had already spent some of that money in my mind…so I am headed to IKEA after work to pick up a few things.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We were trying to fix the pocket door, which we ended up completely taking apart (picture us ripping off molding, breaking out the crobar, etc). Craziness. We’ll post about that adventure soon.

      xo,
      s

  10. Abbey says

    Cute!!! Love the costumes, and I thought I’d tell you (though I’m sure you know, because you are uber-on-top-of-life) that you could take the little critters to Chipotle. They’re offering $2 burritos to those who are dressed as processed food! Score!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We actually heard about that a few days ago. We thought it might be more chaotic than fun, but we laughed at the thought of trying to juggle our dressed up kiddos while munching on a $2 burrito!

      xo,
      s

  11. Kyleen says

    What a great idea for your lil’ punkin! It’s our baby girl’s first Halloween, too! She’s almost 10 months and she’s going to be a lady bug all because I found this hat –
    http://www.etsy.com/listing/59682763/lil-ladybug-cotton-hat
    (it’s soooo cute on) Anyway, love love love your blog! It’s really inspiring us to get on the move and start updating our house. We just finishing installing laminate wood flooring (ugh) and next is a redo of our half bath! Thanks for helping with the inspiration!

    Reply

  12. Molly P-H says

    The riffs on burger and dog are killin’ me!! LOVE!! Her burger costume looks much better than store bought — did you guys craft that TOO??? Awesome. Molly in Fla.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Molly P-H – We’re not so handy when it comes to costume sewing so these are both store bought (burger from Old Navy, hot dog from Target). They were quite the deal for how good they look!

      Hayley – I wouldn’t say we’re experts in the pumpkin carving arena either but some things that always help us: make sure the hole you cut in the top is big enough for your hand and is either jagged or wavy (like ours) so you can set your top askew to let candle heat/smoke out without it falling in. We like to trace our design on first using a pen or Sharpie and then use the cheap pumpkin cutting saws you can get at the store to make slow and careful cuts. Remember you can always cut off more, but it’s pretty hard to put anything back! Have fun!

      -John

  15. Elizabeth says

    So funny that you mention fixing a pocket door. The first house I bought (not my current house) had a pocket door between the front hall and the kitchen. When I toured the house before buying it would not go all the way back into the wall because the homeowners had installed an over the stove microwave and the bolts stuck into the wall cavity where the door was supposed to go. So in our contract that was listed as one of the things to fix. When I went to the house after the closing the door was GONE! LOL! They “fixed” it by removing it and sealing up the doorframe. It was cosmetically perfect, but a bit of a surprise. Lesson learned…be more specific about repairs in a home purchase contract.

    Reply

  20. Krystal says

    How adorable!

    I was so excited to carve my pumpkins last weekend, when I went outside to discover my car had been egged and my pumpkins stolen :( Oh well, maybe next year!

    I just love the kiddos costumes too! I’ve been Hannah Montana for the last two years (yes, I do realize I’ll be 20 in 6 days…), but I’m not dressing up this year. It was mandatory to dress up for work when I was at Dairy Queen all through high school (we gave out free medium cones to the trick-or-treaters), and I think I’m rebelling now that it’s not required and I’ve no party to go to.

    Reply

  21. Holly says

    Oh My, those costumes are so cute! I love the “curl” on the pumpkin top! Maybe that wasn’t on purpose… Also, very creative idea to use her hands as the pumpkin’s sweet eyes!

    Reply

  22. Caroline says

    I love the costumes! I actually am dressing up my 4-month-old son as a hamburger and my chocolate lab as a hotdog from ON and Target as well, good minds think alike:)

    Reply

  24. Ami @ beyondpeasandcarrots says

    What a great idea for pumpkin carving!! I think it may be a little girly formy baby boy though. Maybe I will try to come up with some other design I can use his traced hands for though.

    Also, the costumes are so cute :). Did you get her hamburger costume at Old Navy? I saw one there when I was picking up my sons shark costume.

    Reply

  30. Meghan says

    Ha – those costumes are TOO funny!

    Any tips on keeping squirrels from eating your pumpkin? We just bought our first house in March and we are so excited to have our first halloween in a neighborhood with lots of kids, but a squirrel ate right through our pumpkin after only a few days!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      That’s a tough one, Meghan. We don’t know any tips for keeping squirrels from eating your pumpkins (maybe distract them with a supply of acorns nearby? Ha!). Anyone else know of any?

      -John

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Hey everyone,

      The costumes are both store-bought (we’re not that good with a sewing machine). Clara’s hamburger is from Old Navy and Burger’s hot dog is from Target.

      -John

  40. Kristy says

    So stinkin’ cute! I’m so going to be a copy-cat for Halloween and steal your pumpkin idea. But how in the world am I going to get my little guy to sit still long enough? :)

    Reply

  41. amy says

    i have a random question for you guys.

    i believe you mentioned before that you have plaster walls in your house, is that correct?

    if so what reccomendations do you have for hanging pictures, shelves and other potentially heavy items in your walls. this has been a curiosity for us lately with trying to add things on the walls and not wanting to cause any cracks or damage if not necessary.

    thanks

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Hey Amy,

      We just drill a small pilot hole in the wall, hammer in a plastic anchor, and use a screw that fits right into the anchor to hang things that are especially heavy. Otherwise a nail will do the trick! And small pilot holes in the wall beforehand can head off cracks.

      xo,
      s

  42. Rebekah says

    I heard an strange tidbit that coating Vaseline on a jack o lantern will preserve it a bit longer. I have yet to try it, but it did sound interesting!

    Reply

  44. Hedi says

    How hysterical! My one year old son and my five year old shih tzu have IDENTICAL costumes as your little ones! We got our hamburger costume at Old Navy as well.

    Reply

  45. Ashley says

    I was a picnic table for Halloween in 4th grade, talk about embarrassing! I think the more embarrassing part is that I picked out the costume.

    I think I might have to steal your pumpkin idea, too cute!

    Reply

  50. Ashley says

    Clara always looks so calm in pictures. She really does have a serene disposition. I can tell she will be a go with the flow, down for whatever kinda girl. And Burger is a pro with the look over his left shoulder! Looks like tons of fun. Where did you all find a REAL pumpkin patch? All I see around here is road side “patches”.

    Reply

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