Over the weekend I visited friends in Philadelphia. On the agenda? Fall festivities! We visited an adorable pumpkin farm, and what started out as a joke about how I wanted to get the biggest pumpkin in the patch turned into me actually getting the biggest pumpkin in the patch.

I chose this whopper, a real beauty who weighed in at 45 pounds! Seriously, that is a very heavy pumpkin. If you plan to purchase such a large gourd, I suggest bringing a very strong person with you -- or at the very least, don't wear your high-heeled boots to the farm (ahem).



I decided to carve my monster into an owl, which turned out to be much easier than I expected! This was my first attempt at anything beyond the basic jack o'lantern, so I'm no pro at this pumpkin carving thing, but here are some helpful tips I learned along the way:

• Make a rough sketch of your design on paper, or use a template if you don't want to draw your own design. (Martha has a lot of good pumpkin templates here.)

• Use a non-permanent marker to mark the pumpkin where necessary (the marker will wash off if you make a mistake). I used a marker to outline the size and shape of my owl's wings. Once the wings were carved, it was easy to improvise the rest of the owl, but you could go on to further mark more sections. You can also use a pin to mark tiny holes, but my friend used this method and some of her pin holes self-healed by the time she got to them.

• Get the right tools! We used a combination of kitchen knives and pumpkin-carving tools - our favorite was the small serrated tool that came in a pumpkin-carving kit. It was the best for detail work.

• Pick up some linoleum/wood-carving tools from an art-supply store to to carve into the surface of the pumpkin without cutting all the way through. This is how you get the light orange areas, which is a great effect for adding color and dimension. I suggest picking up a wide tool for carving away large areas (like my wings), and a narrow tool for carving lines.

• It takes a lot of muscle to carve all the way through the thick wall of a large pumpkin, so you can thin out the wall to make the work easier. Using a large spoon, scrape the inside wall of the pumpkin until the wall is reduced to a width that's more manageable, maybe about 1.5 inches. (Only scrape the area where you will be carving, not the entire pumpkin.)
  

• The traditional jack o'lantern has the top cut off, but for a cleaner look, try cutting out the bottom instead.

• To light a big guy like this, a simple candle may not do the trick. My friend Melissa told me that you can wrap a tall jar or glass vase with a strand of white lights, then place the whole thing inside the pumpkin. This will be brighter than a candle of course, and it will distribute the light evenly so that your carving work will glow in all its glory!

Have fun carving up your own spooky masterpiece - please share a link in the comments of any fun punkins you make!