The 2008 Pumpkin Carving Contest has been canceled. My sister will be graduating from Army Basic Training and I will be attending her graduation ceremonies, so I will not be able to hold the contest this year.

My most sincere apologies to everyone who looks forward to viewing such awesome carvings year after year! The contest will resume in 2009!

AND THE WINNER IS…..

“Fear” by Daniel Rodriguez Age: 37 (click carving to enlarge)

CONGRATULATIONS, DANIEL!!!

Daniel won a $25 Gift Certificate from Amazon and an autographed copy of WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson! Woohoo! Congrats!

I’m not eligible for prizes, of course, but I threw my two carvings into the contest for viewing:

Last Leaves

Crown of Thorns

These are two of the three visions I doodled at Church on Sunday. Mark is going to do the third one.

Updated to add: Mark started the third one lastnight and I finished it up – the Crown of Thorns is another of the visions I had for my Pumpkin Carvings this year. 🙂

I’ve also modified the contest voting information to be more specific:

Deadline for pumpkin carving submissions: Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 5PM CST

Voting Info: The poll will open on Tuesday, October 30th around 6PM CST. Vote through 9PM on Wednesday, October 31st.

Voting starts TONIGHT at 6PM, after the last entries have been uploaded. There are about 45 entries to consider – so have a browse – they’re all so creative! TELL YOUR FRIENDS, because you only get one vote per person/computer. No clearing cookies or cache and voting again from the same computer/IP, that is disallowed automatically in the voting software.

The girls completed 2 of our 6 pumpkins yesterday – Chickeymonkey made hers all by herself (I’m diggin’ the crazy face!) and Catybug entered hers into The Pumpkin Carving Contest.

I have to admit, I have visions of carvings dancing in my head. I shall be carving mine later today!

If you haven’t stopped by to browse the carvings yet – you really should. We’re up to 29 entries now, all of them are SO cool! Just 3 more carving days remaining before the poll opens up and you can vote on your favorite – I’m excited to see who wins this year!

Attention all carvers – with just a few days to go, we’re Googling like crazy over here to find a tool that will make our carving dreams easy this year. Lo and behold, we found the Pumpkin Shop Program – and this program has it all!

“Pumpkinshop is the first pumpkin carving program on the Internet to allow users to carve the most basic to the most elaborate patterns. It is a computer program that takes any image you want and transforms it into a pumpkin carving stencil. The stencil can then be taped onto a pumpkin and carved out. Have your friend’s face carved within an hour, or go all out and carve the coolest, most detailed pumpkin that will impress every trick-or-treater on the block!”

The program includes video tutorials, too! The best part – it’s only $12.95 and you’ll be able to use it year after year.

The Pumpkin Carvings are rolling in for my Third Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest … have you carved yet? This is the weekend to do it (for those in a cooler climate)!

We’re ready to go with our template CD, battery operated carvers, and color changing lights to set inside of our pumpkins. I picked up 6 pumpkins the other day, as well – so now it’s all about clearing off the table and making a big mess!

Believe it or not, I’m not big into Halloween itself. I do, however, totally encourage and promote the craft of carving – it is absolutely an art form to carve something from a blank “canvas”, and it’s SO cool to see them lit up!

You can find battery operated carvers and lots of really fun template books at your local “Super” marts, be it the “K’s” or the “W’s”, they also have a nice supply at Walgreen’s.

If you’re having a hard time getting a good photo of your carving lit up in the dark, here are a few tips to get a great shot:

• Use a tripod, or a box to set and steady your camera on.
• Turn the flash OFF.
• Use your timer! I don’t know anyone able to hold a camera steady enough in the dark to get a good, glowing photo.
• Play with your shutter speed, if you can. If it’s not open long enough, you don’t get enough glow. Too long, and it’s too much glow. Try a few different settings to get that shutter speed just right.

I can’t wait to see more carvings – they are really are getting more and more creative and beautiful by the year!