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50 Times People Took Halloween Pumpkin Carving To A Whole New Level And Created These Masterpieces
Pumpkin carving is what you make of it. It's a fun (family) activity that helps you get into the Halloween spirit and is a great way to express your creativity, too.
The best thing about it is the freedom: you can go for something playful like your favorite meme, or a scary zombie, it's all up to you.
To give you a better idea of what's possible, we at Bored Panda compiled a list of our favorite jack-o'-lanterns. Enjoy!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
My Friend Is Awesome At Carving Pumpkins
Hello it Smee 4 years ago
That is so mesmerizing right down to the reflexion in the helmet and it has a shadow by it's feet. Super creative and talented carver!😍
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#2
Luigi's Mansion Pumpkin
This Halloween practice originated in Ireland, where large turnips and potatoes served as early canvasses. In fact, the very name, jack-o'-lantern, comes from an Irish myth about a man named Stingy Jack. Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, home of the pumpkin, and it became an integral part of the spooky celebration.
According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. Remaining true to his name, Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for his glass, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to pay for their order. But when the Devil obliged, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which would prevent the Devil from going back to his original form.
Jack eventually freed the Devil, but under the condition that he would not bother Jack for a whole year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul.
#3
I Carved A Pumpkin
#4
I Work In An Animation Studio With Some Of The Best Artists I’ve Ever Met And This Is The Pumpkin That Won Our Carving Contest Yesterday
#5
My Husband's Pumpkin Carving
The next year, Jack tricked the Devil again. This time, by making him climb into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil could not come down. Now, the Devil had to promise not to bother Jack for ten more years.
Soon after, Jack died. As the legend has it, God didn't allow such an unsavory individual into heaven. But the Devil, who was still upset by the tricks Jack had played on him, kept his word and didn't claim Jack's soul.
So since Jack couldn't enter hell either, he ended up in the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with it ever since, thus earning the name "Jack of the Lantern," and later, simply "Jack O'Lantern."
#6
Someone Got The Pumpkins Right
#7
The Collector
#8
My 16-Year-Old Niece’s Halloween Pumpkin Carving
In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack's lanterns, carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them near windows or doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other evil spirits that might've also been wandering the night. In England, people used large beets.
Immigrants from these countries brought the tradition with them when they came to the US and soon discovered that pumpkins, a fruit native to their new home, make perfect jack-o'-lanterns.
#9
Peter Peter The Pumpkin Eater
#10
My Wife Won Her Office Pumpkin Decorating Contest After 5 Years Of Disappointment
#12
My Sister Carved A Pumpkin Again
#13
So My Friend Won A Pumpkin Carving Contest With This
#14
My Friend Carves The Best Pumpkins, Half Of My Halloween Excitement Is Waiting To See What He's Come Up With, Here Is This Year's
#15
Darling, It Will Be Bold. Dramatic
#16
My 2014 Pumpkins: Harry vs. Voldemort
#17
Gandalf vs. Balrog Pumpkin Carving "You Shall Not Paaaasss"
#18
Unbelievable Viking Pumpkin
𝔓𝔲𝔯𝔭𝔩𝔢 ℜ𝔞𝔢𝔑 4 years ago
HOW?!? Just... H-O-W??? HOW do all these pumpkin shapers know how to do all these AMAZING things!!!
#19
I Present The Trumpkin, 16 Hours, 56lbs, Three Pumpkins
#20
I Carved This For Halloween. Expecto Pumpkin
#21
I Carved It From Pumpkins
#22
My Pumpkin Scares The Hell Out Of Me
#23
Smashing Pumpkins
#24
My Pumpkin Carving This Year
#25
Anglerfish Pumpkin
#26
My Little Sister's First Attempt At Pumpkin Carving. Her Talent Makes Me Sick Sometimes
#28
Just Finished Decorating Our Annual Scary Pumpkin
Madison Feehan 4 years ago
There's not a carving in the whole world more terrifying than this...
#29
Tonight, I Carved A Pumpkin. I Also Doused It In Lighter Fluid And Lit It On Fire
#30
My Aunt Had A Pumpkin Contest At Work. Safe To Say She Won
#31
I Just Finished My Pumpkin Carving. "The Mad Titan, Thanos"
#32
For My Birthday, I Wanted To Show You Guys My Pumpkin
#33
We Still Have This Small Pumpkin My Wife Carved 3 Years Ago
#34
When You Don't Know What To Carve - Star Wars
#35
My Pumpkins For Halloween This Year
#36
The Perfect Jack O'Lantern Doesn't Exist...
#37
My Wife’s Contribution For The Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest
#39
My Work Friend Carved This In Our Annual Work Pumpkin Carving Contest, It Was His First Pumpkin And It Took Him 10 Hours
#40
It’s Pumpkin Carving Season
#41
I Carved The Scariest Pumpkin I Could Imagine
#42
Entry For My Work's Pumpkin Decorating Contest
#43
This Welding Pumpkin
#44
Johnny Depp Pumpkin
#45
One Of The Cooler Pumpkins Carvings I’ve Seen
Madison Feehan 4 years ago
This is incredible! At least that's how the eye of the beholder sees it.
#46
I’ve Outdone Myself This Year
#47
The Rosetta Stone Carved Into A Pumpkin
#48
Proud Of My Submission For The Office Pumpkin Decorating Contest Today
Andy Acceber 4 years ago
What kind of office do you have? This definitely wouldn't be allowed any place I've ever worked.
#49
Is My Rick And Morty Pumpkin Worthy Of Your Praise?
#50
We Made This For A Pumpkin Decorating Contest At Work
#51
A Few Cool Pumpkins From A Carving Contest In My Community
#52
My Buddy's Jack O'Lantern This Year
#53
That’s No Moon
SomePeopleCallMeMaurice 4 years ago
WHOA! Please don’t be bummed that you aren’t getting more upvotes, people seem to get tired before the get this far down the list! Bravo!!
#54
These Handmade Pumpkin Carvings
#55
Pumpkin Carving Success
#57
A Pumpkin Carved Into A Pumpkin
#58
My First Time Carving A Pumpkin In Years. Love The End Result
Ann Dennis 4 years ago
Cool! Another member of the same family as #27 and #46. They make me smile :)
#59
Minion Lovers, This Should Officially Be The Best Jack O'Lantern Ever
#60
No One Even Notice My Pumpkin Last Night
Hello it Smee 4 years ago
I have never thought of doing a double sided carving, but after see these I want to try it now. That is so cool.
#61
"Predator" - A Carving On A Tremendous 257 Kg Pumpkin
#62
I Carved My First Pumpkin. His Name Is Murphy And I’m Obsessed With Him
#63
My 2020 Pumpkin Carving, "Pennywise... The Dancing Clown!"
#64
My Friend Just Posted This Pumpkin Carving On Facebook
#65
My Wife's First Attempt At Painting Pumpkins. They Came Out Ok
#68
My First Pumpkin Of The Year. Wednesday Addams Giving Some Epic Side-Eye
#69
Really Surprised How Well My Pumpkin Carving Turned Out
#70
I Think I've Found My Calling. Here's Pumpkin Attempt #3
#72
If You Pick Your Pumpkins Right, They Turn Into Shrunken Heads In The Las Vegas Heat. Ready For October
#73
This Pumpkin Gave Me Nightmares Last Night And I Made The Damn Thing
#74
Second Attempt At Pumpkin Carving
#75
When You Putin A Lot Of Effort Into Carving
#76
My Friend's Dad Is A Dentist. This Is His Pumpkin For Halloween
#77
Finished My 2017 Halloween Pumpkin
#78
"And Then He Greeted Death As An Old Friend, And Went With Him Gladly, And, Equals, They Departed This Life.” The Tale Of The Three Brothers, Both Pumpkins Together
#79
First Pumpkin Of The Year And He Unintentionally Ended Up Looking A Bit Like Mike Wachowski From "Monsters, Inc."
#80
Halloween Pumpkin Carving
#81
My Girlfriend Made This "Demogourdgon" Pumpkin For The Office Pumpkin Contest And Won 1st Place
#82
The Second Time Carving Maleficent. This Time The Angelina Jolie Version
#83
My GF Carved This Last Night. Don't Think A Lot Of People Will Recognize It But I'm Sure It'll Be Appreciated Here
The only Plueschopossum 4 years ago
How could one not recognize this? It's the Tale of the Three Brothers from HP ;)
#84
My Brothers Yearly Pumpkin
#85
My Contribution To The Keene Pumpkin Festival
Cold Contagious 4 years ago
"My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the gourd!" It's fantastic! It looks like it's singing loud and proud!
#86
My Pumpkin Don't Feel So Good
#87
One Of The Scariest Pumpkins I've Seen Yet
#88
My 3-Year-Old Son Wanted Me To Make Him A "Scary Pumpkin". Pretty Happy With How It Came Out
#89
So It Turns Out That Leaving A Jack O'Lantern Next To A Tree Where Squirrels Can Eat Away Its Face Results In The Most Terrifying Pumpkin Ever
#90
My 9-Year-Old Daughter’s Idea: Human Spice Latte
#91
First Time Carving A Pumpkin & I’m 22. Dropped The Little Pumpkin But The Crack Makes It Better
#92
My Dad Carved The Best Pumpkin And I Thought It Needs To Be Shared Somehow
#93
I Painted A Dutch Pottery Style Pumpkin
#94
Pumpkins That Were Grown In A Mould
#95
Very Proud Of My Pumpkin This Year
#96
Pumpkin Carving Went Plus Ultra This Year
#97
Zombie Pumpkin. This One Was Tough, But Love How It Turned Out
#98
I Made A "The Thing" Pumpkin. It Only Took An Unreasonable Amount Of Time
#99
You Guys Enjoyed My Wife's Pumpkins Last Year. Here Is The 2017 Edition
#100
My Girlfriend Had A Pumpkin Carving Contest At Work
#101
It's Friday Tomorrow Witches. Took Me Forever To Carve This
#102
My Attempt At Fulfilling My Daughter's Request For An Anglerfish Pumpkin
#103
Breaking Bad Pumpkin
#104
I Call This “Here Comes The Sloth”
#105
Six Hours Later, My First Try At Surface Carving A Pumpkin
#106
My First Attempt At A 3D Pumpkin Carving, How'd I Do?
Elizabeth Walker 4 years ago
Great job. I wish I could do something close to that. I'm not good at it!
#107
It's Not Much, But I'm Kinda Proud Of My Bob's Burgers Jack O'Lanterns
#108
The Pumpkin My Dad Submitted To His Office Pumpkin Contest A Couple Years Ago
#109
My Girlfriend Entered A Pumpkin Contest. Win Or Lose, I Say She Nailed It
#110
Not An Artist By Any Means But I'm Pretty Proud Of My Pumpkin This Year
#111
Found Some Candles. Here's My Steve Buscemi Pumpkin. Did I Capture His Eyes?
#112
Ready For The Office Pumpkin Contest (This Time With The Candle)
#114
Graveyard Pumpkin Diorama
#115
I Stepped Up My Pumpkin Sculpting Game With A Bigger Pumpkin Today
#116
My First Pumpkin Carving. A Tiger Jack O'Lantern
#117
My Friend Carved These Hocus Pocus Pumpkins And Put Glow Sticks In Them So They Glow Different Colors
#118
Blazing Pumpkins
#119
I Know You Guys Have Seen A Lot Of Jack O'Lanterns Lately, But Here's My Buddy's From Last Night
#120
A Bit Better With The Lights On
#121
I Carved Geralt Onto A Pumpkin This Year
#122
This Pumpkin That I Carved Yesterday
#123
My Jack O'Lantern Turned Out Pretty Good
#124
Family Pumpkin Carving Got A Little Competitive
Cold Contagious 4 years ago
Lil' baby pumpkin looks so scared 😱 and very well should be judging by the looks of what's eating him! Eye spy with my little eye a plump and juicy human thigh!
#125
My Girlfriend's Submission For The Office Pumpkin Carving Contest
#127
Since Everybody Else Is Doing One
#128
Happy Halloween. Charon Pumpkin Carving
#130
I Carved A BB8 Pumpkin. This Is Him Now
#132
My Giant Cheshire Cat Pumpkin. I’m Frazzled From How Much Energy It Took To Move That Monster
#133
I Carved A Pumpkin This Weekend
#134
I Carved This Pumking. What Do Yall Think?
#135
Terrifying. An Entry Into The Neighborhood Pumpkin Carving Contest
Marilynn Heilman 4 years ago
Scarier than any other pumpkin. This one will give me nightmares! ;-)
#138
Found This Weird Double Pumpkin And Had To Do It
#139
My Minion Pumpkin
#141
I Decided To Carve A Pumpkin
#142
The Scariest Idea I Could Think Of For A Spooky Pumpkin
PopscotchM 4 years ago
AAHH NOOOOoooooo..... il do anything... make it stop! please make it stop!
#143
This Is My Entry To The 2018 Blizzard Pumpkin Contest, Not Quite How I Imagined But I'm Still Proud
#144
Pumpkin I Carved Of My Fiancée And I For Our Wedding
Cold Contagious 4 years ago
Extremely cool, they must be very proud of the work that went into it!
#145
Since 2012 I’ve Been Making My Pumpkins A Bit Differently
#147
Expecto Pumptronus. A Harry Potter-Themed Jack O'Lantern
#148
My Team's Entry Into Our Company's Annual Pumpkin Decorating Contest
#149
My Pumpkin Carving Might Be Recognizable To Some Of You
#152
This Jack O'Lantern With Mold Growing From Inside
#153
My Wife Was Not Thrilled With My Pumpkin Carving This Year
#154
I Did Not Win The Company Pumpkin Carving Contest
#155
My Son Wanted A Thomas The Train Pumpkin For Halloween. I May Have Gone Overboard
#156
My Dad Just Lasered This Onto A Pumpkin
#157
I Work In A Call Center For Customer Service, And Our Department Entered This Pumpkin Into The Contest That Was Held For Halloween. We Won
#158
My Friend Carved The Scariest Thing He Could Imagine Into His Pumpkin This Year
#159
Thought I'd Share This Halloween Pumpkin Decoration Of Bob Ross From Work
#160
Girlfriend’s Pumpkin Blew Me Away
#161
Big Green Keg Pumpkin DIY
#162
My Entry For The Office Pumpkin Contest. Donald Trumpkin
#163
My Pumpkin For This Year's Contest. Holy Hot Glue Sticks, Batman
#164
Pumpkin Eye Ballz
#165
Hocus Pocus Or Mucus Pukus?
#166
I Carved A Pumpkin
#169
My Submission To The GW2 Pumpkin Carving Contest
#171
My Girlfriend Made This Amazing Pumpkin For Halloween
#172
My Attempt At A Minecraft Jack O'Lantern
#173
My Little Shop Of Horrors Decorated Pumpkin 2017
There is a pumpkin in the lower plant with no hand. No puncture or carving allowed. All handmade. Tell me what you think!
#174
No One At The Carving Party Knew Who These Guys Were - But I Bet You Guys Will
#175
My Pumpkin Contest Entry
#177
Finished Carving A Totoro Pumpkin Just In Time For Halloween
#179
I Carved A Truth Pumpkin. Happy Halloween Everyone
#181
My Submission For The Office Pumpkin Decorating Contest This Year
Cold Contagious 4 years ago
So epic, Randy microwaved his testicles to get cancer so he could get a medicinal Marijuana card and smoke weed. He brags to the other men in town about how the women in town love his enlarged testicles, so every man gets testicular cancer so theirs will be enlarged as well and uses them as bouncing balls for transportation to bounce to and from where they're going. How insane 😳
#182
My Nephew Has A Pumpkin Contest At School. He Better Win
#183
Got The Night King Pumpkin Carving Complete. Pretty Happy With How It Turned Out. Took About 6 Hours In Total To Gut, Carve And Shade. I Love October
#185
For Five Years Now I’ve Been Painting Classic Goosebumps Covers On Pumpkins. Here Is The First One Of The Season
#187
Happy Halloween. Our Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest Brings Out The Creativity In Our Team Members
#189
Pumpkin Riiiiiick (And Morty)
#190
My 8-Year-Old Daughter Entered This Junimo Pumpkin Into Her School's Pumpkin Decorating Contest
#192
It May Not Be Anywhere Near Perfect But I Am Geeking Out Over My BB8 Pumpkin Chilling On My Doorstep This Year
#195
I Tried Carving Keanu Reeves' Face Into A Pumpkin, But Instead, I Created A Horrible Abomination
#197
We Had A Pumpkin Decorating Contest At Work Today. My Team Is Sassy
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What do you think ?
Peppy Piplup 4 years ago (edited)
My dad's company had a pumpkin carving contest last year where you had to send in photos of your carved pumpkins from home, so naturally the employees' families participated as well. My brother decided to print out a blue screen error message and tape it to a pumpkin while he carved the :( face onto the side of it. The best part was that he secretly changed the QR code from the original image so if you scanned it, it led you to the YouTube video of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." My little brother rickrolled the owner of the company.
Peppy Piplup 4 years ago (edited)
My dad's company had a pumpkin carving contest last year where you had to send in photos of your carved pumpkins from home, so naturally the employees' families participated as well. My brother decided to print out a blue screen error message and tape it to a pumpkin while he carved the :( face onto the side of it. The best part was that he secretly changed the QR code from the original image so if you scanned it, it led you to the YouTube video of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." My little brother rickrolled the owner of the company.
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