Floral Halloween Pumpkin
Difficulty Rating -
The floral pumpkin is the alternative way to use a pumpkin as a decoration for Halloween. A pumpkin doesn't always have to look scary, and for a table centre piece it is nice to use a pumpkin as a vase to hold autumnal coloured flowers. Floral pumpkins are easy to make and you don't need any previous flower arranging experience.
To make a floral pumpkin your will need...
A smallish pumpkin,
A bunch of flowers,
Table candles,
Water and an apple corer.
Choose a nice pumpkin which is a nice shape and doesn't have many blemishes on the skin surface. Don't be a conformist – if you find a nice pumpkin with a flat part on its side, you could use this as the 'vase' base and have the stalk of the pumpkin showing on the side. Try to choose a beautiful pumpkin.
When you get the pumpkin home give the skin on the pumpkin a rub with a damp cloth to clean it.
Next think about where you would like the candles to go and using the apple corer; make a hollow in the pumpkin that doesn't go all the way through the pumpkin. If you just let the apple corer cut the skin and then pull it out it should leave a hollow the ideal size to hold a long tapered candle.
After getting your candles in place you can start on making holes for the flowers. Make 8 to 10 holes in the pumpkin that go all the way through to the inside of the pumpkin. Remember, the pumpkin is a vase and will hold water, so don't make the holes in the pumpkin too low otherwise the pumpkin won't hold much water. It doesn't matter in the pieces of pumpkin fall inside.
With a funnel and a small jug of water (containing any plant food that came with the flowers) pour the water into one of the holes that you make in the pumpkin. You won't need much water and you will find that it soon starts leaking out of some of the other holes so it's a good idea to fill the pumpkin with water on the draining board.
Now for the fun part. Cut the flowers off the main stalk leaving them with about 5 inches of stem. Group 3 or 4 flowers together and push them into one of the holes on the pumpkin. The flowers should rest on the pumpkin skin. Fill all the holes on the pumpkin in this way making an attractive floral display which pleases you.
If you have a few lengths of ivy, you can push one end of the ivy into a hole and the other end into a different hole to give a weaving ivy look to the display.
As long as the pumpkin skin isn't damaged in any way the pumpkin shouldn't leak. But if you are putting it on a wooden surface, it's probably advisable to place the pumpkin on a plate.