It’s October 22th – almost a week before Halloween, and the PERFECT time to carve your pumpkins and dry your gourds! You can do so much more than carve a simple face.

When moving into my house past this past May, I noticed that there was something odd growing. I wasn’t sure if it was a weed, so I let it keep growing. Surprisingly, it produced one mini pumpkin (gourd), and I’m attempting to dry it! I looked up ‘how to dry gourds’ on Google, and found so many different results of what to do and not to do. I’m really confused about the whole process. For now, I’m hanging it up in my garage and seeing what happens. Anyone know how to dry gourds for real? I want to keep the seeds, too! Anyways, back to the real post subject.

I’ve collected several tutorials that I thought were interesting ideas for both pumpkins and gourds.

The first section will focus on carved pumpkin and gourds, and the second section is a whole bunch of ideas for no carve solutions.

General Tutorials:

• How To Make Halloween Spooktacular Pumpkins Video: YouTube
• Carving Artificial Pumpkins Tips: Craft Jr.
• Free Pumpkin Stencils for Halloween: Fantasy Jr.
• Scary Pumpkin Stencils: Fantasy Jr.
• Pumpkin Carving Patterns: FamilyE

Contents for Carved Pumpkin and Gourd Tutorials:

• Non-traditional Carving Tutorials

Contents for No Carve Pumpkin and Gourd Tutorials:

• Ribbon Tutorials
• Object Attachment Tutorials
• Painted Tutorials
• Picture Tutorials

• Inspiration, Ideas, and Photos

Carved Pumpkin and Gourd Tutorials:

Non-Traditional Carving Tutorials:

Good to Glow Haunted House Pumpkin: Parents

Mummy Pumpkin: Ladies Home Journal

Geometric Pattern Pumpkin: Parents

In a Twinkling Pumpkin: Parents

No Carve Pumpkin and Gourd Tutorials:

Ribbon Tutorials:

Object Attachment Tutorials:

• Vinyl Pumpkin Decorating from OhMyCrafts on YouTube

This Aint Your Ordinary Pumpkin: Kari and Kijsa

More Pretty Little Pumpkins: The Shabby Nest

Pumpkin Costume: Dollar Store Crafts

Dried Leaves Gourd: Gingerbread Snowflakes

Stickered Mini Pumpkins: Cheeky Magpie

Painted Tutorials:

Doodle Pumpkin: The Swell Life

Setting Pretty Painted Mini Pumpkins: Parents

Spooky Spots: Parents

Let's Make a Pumpkin Penguin: WyldHare

Cuddle-able Scarecrows: Gingerbread Snowflakes

Bloody Pumpkins: The Swell Life's Blog

Creepy Spiders: Parents

Going Batty Pumpkins: Parents

Boo in the Face Eyes Pumpkin: Parents

Spray Painted Pumpkins: Crafty Crafty

Make Your Own Ghost Gourds: Cathie Filian

Picture Tutorials:

Inspiration, Ideas, and Photos:

• 10 Awesome Robot Halloween Pumpkins: Botropolis
• Button Pumpkins and Lady Monster Gourds: Ruffles and Stuff

Am I insane for spending hours to get pictures and links all set up? YES. In general. And NO – because I use my blog as a reference for myself as well. I can reference back to these tutorials and ideas for the rest of my life – without having to search ever again! YES! That’s why, if you  have any awesome tutorials, ideas, or comments for pumpkins or gourds – let me know so I can keep a running list! Thanks so much!

Photo Credit: nep on flickr