Jack-o'-Lantern

Finally got around to making a jack-o'-lantern today! :D  Halloween brings the inner child in me (Well, actually, a lot of things do, but I'm not going to go into that today.).  But it's been particularly fun since my child was born many years ago.  We always crafted with pumpkins in one way or another.  We've played with paintings the faces on them with markers early on when she was young and then gradually moved onto using knives to carve.  I often let her just draw a face with markers and took over to do the carving.  This year we each got a pumpkin to play with.

Mine is a cross between a sugar skull and a jack-o'-lantern this year.  I wanted to take pictures with marigolds (one of the few plants that are still flowering this late in the season), but they're all too tall for this guy and I ended up propping him up in the sweet alyssums.

Tilt him skyward and he appears to be smiling.  ^_^

One of the other flowers that are still blooming is Mexican Sunflower, so I popped the blooms in the eye sockets.  Voila!  Perfect size! :D  So festive!

I'll try to take a picture of this with candle inside later when it gets darker.  Not guaranteeing anything since I was kind of impatient and I may not have scraped the inside enough to make it thin enough to allow light to show in the white area...

Well, it was a lot of fun and I got to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon (temperature in the 70s, calm and clear... just gorgeous), daydreaming and carving away.  Time well spent. ^_^

UPDATE: The third photo (flower eyes one) was featured in the weather segment of 11 News at 10 on KKCO on Halloween night. ^_^