Pumpkin carving is a time-honored Halloween tradition, but all those sharp knives and little details can be difficult to manage if you want to share the experience with your little ones.  That's why this week we're bringing you a blog from Steph of Modern Parents Messy Kids on a more kid-friendly way to carve your pumpkins!  

We Tried It! – Cookie Cutter Pumpkins

I’m back with another installment of the “We Tried It!” series.  I got the idea for cookie cutter pumpkin carving here and it was a huge hit with the kiddos.  I love how this method lets you easily create a high end look in whatever theme your kids are currently interested in.  We went with a pretty random motif of animals, an airplane, and a guitar.  Next year maybe we’ll experiment with letters.
To begin, carve out the pumpkin guts and select a few of your favorite cookie cutters.  (We got ours for a dollar each a while ago at Sur la table.  They were bought for birthday cookies, have since been part of our play dough tool kit, and today were utilized to carve pumpkins.  I love it when a purchase gets used in so many ways – especially if it was only a buck!)  Position them on the pumpkin and tap lightly with a rubber mallet.
 
Then hand the mallet over to you kids and let the good times roll.
 
Once the cookie cutter is all the way through, it’s time to get out a knife. (Obviously, this is an adults only step.)  At first we removed the cookie cutter and carved as the original post advised.  But eventually we found it worked better to keep the cookie cutter in place while hacking away at the inside.
 
Once the carving is done, add a candle and you’re good to go.  The kids loved the pumpkin itself but what C really dug were the projections of the carvings up onto the wall.  I highly recommend getting yourself some cookie cutters and trying this one out.  It makes for an extremely easy carving process and a very cool end product.
To view the original blog, go to: http://www.modernparentsmessykids.com/2011/10/we-tried-it-cookie-cutter-pumpkins.html