Personalized Carved Pumpkins

Would you like to carve some pumpkins that are personalized to your family?  Here's an idea for making a pattern with a little help from Picmonkey.

Take or find a picture of the person you wish to carve on a pumpkin.  I used this picture of my son wearing my sunglasses.  (He will be so thrilled!)

 

In the case of this picture, I cropped and edited out everything I didn't want in the background.  To crop in Picmonkey, select the top icon on the left, and then choose CROP.

To create the pumpkin pattern - select the Magic Wand icon on the left, and scroll down until you find POSTERIZE.  You will only want to use 2 colors, and probably slide the Details Bar until you get the look you want.

You should get a picture that looks something like this!  Isn't that cool?

All you need to do now is save your picture to your computer.  To print the pattern - insert your saved picture into a Word document and adjust the size.  Trace the design onto your pumpkin, and shave away all the white areas of the picture.

This is just a mock-up, but it gives you an idea of what your carved pumpkin would look like.

Wouldn't it be fun to use pictures of your kids with crossed eyes or sticking out their tongues?  Just remember to keep it simple, or you'll be carving forever and writing icky comments to me!

Lavender Tub Tips:  When taking the pictures - try to use a plain white background with really good lighting.  You want strong contrast in your pic.  If it is not turning out the best on the POSTERIZE - you might need to play with it by going Black and White, or upping the contrast.  Each picture I've tried has been a little different, so you might need to play with it a bit.