3D Snail Jack O’Lantern Pumpkin Carving Tutorial
You know what’s fun to make for Halloween? A 3D snail pumpkin! It’s so easy.
Supplies for 3D Snail Jack O’Lantern
1. one nice round pumpkin
2. one butternut squash
3. two wooden skewers
4. two ping pong balls
5. a permanent marker
6. your normal jack o’ lantern carving tools (aka knife, spoon to scoop)
7. a drill, if you’re super handy (not required)
How to Make a 3D Snail Jack O’Lantern
1. First you need to make the snail’s shell. Do this by cutting the bottom out of your nice round pumpkin. Scoop out all the seeds and make sure it’s nice and clean.
2. Then cut a spiral in the top of the pumpkin, make sure you don’t carve too much because you don’t want to weaken your pumpkin or accidentally cut the whole top off.
3. Then cut the bottom of your nice round pumpkin to level it, so the pumpkin can sit on its side like a snail shell and not topple over. This pumpkin won’t last more than a few nights with that much exposed pumpkin meat…but it’s fun for one night. And you have to admit, he’s super cute.
4. Now you can make your snail’s body. This is just a butternut squash with the bottom lopped off but you want to cut it at an angle so the snail’s head will be tilted away from the snail jack o’lantern shell like so.
5. Add your snail’s eyes by drilling a small hole in each ping pong ball and inserting a skewer into them. If you don’t have a drill, you can probably make the same hole by puncturing the ball with a push pin and then wiggling the pin around until the hole is wide enough to insert the wooden skewer. Once your skewer is in, poke the other end into your butternut squash where the eyes should be positioned and your snail jack o’lantern’s got eyes! Zombie eyes, like my kid says. To add pupils, just color a small dot in the center of your ping pong ball with a black permanent marker. Easy peasy!
6. You can add battery-operated candles to your snail pumpkin’s shell. (Real candles will burn the shell, so don’t use them!) His eyes won’t light up unfortunately but maybe somebody super crafty out there knows a way to rig up some LED lights into the ping-pong balls. That would be so cool.
Then place your snail pumpkin in a flower bed somewhere, and gardeners will run scared!
