Welcome to Adrienne's Halloween Pages

(The Haunted Section of Adrienne's Abode)

In 1999 I noticed that my Halloween enjoyment level had been decreasing each year as I got older. After 30 and without kids, it's really hard to justify going trick-or-treating! Our house isn't well suited for costume parties, and none of our friends seemed to be having them. I realized that something had to be done, and thus the annual Pumpkin Carving Party was born! Each year, we invite tons of people to come over and spill pumpkin guts all over our carpeting...err...that is, to carve intricate Halloween pumpkins as we did when we were kids. What we learned was that not only are there lots of cool patterns out these days that can make carving awesome-looking pumpkins fairly easy, but that many of our friends are actually quite talented in the art of free-hand carving.

The designs get more intricate each year, and almost half the pumpkins are carved without commercial patterns. A few people create their own artistic patterns, while some actually free-hand carve directly onto the pumpkins. That first year we either didn't have our digital camera yet, or didn't think to take pictures. In any case, over the years we've had some truly amazing final products. You'll find this year's complete 2003 line up below along with a few of the past years masterpieces. So without further ado, here are the pumpkins...

2003 Pumpkin Line-up

We carved a record number of pumpkins this year, and the thought of having to click on so many individual thumbnails was very daunting. Jeff came up with the idea of putting the whole thing into a slide show. (As is mentioned on his page, he's not a content guy, but he likes programming challenges.) Luckily for me, there's a ton of free Java programs out there already coded up, because I don't particularly like a programming challenge.

I broke it down into 2 slide shows. Since there were so many photos, just loading was beginning to take a very long time. The first show contains all of the pumpkins that were eligible for the contest. The second is of a joint effort by Jeff (primary carver), Scott (primary designer) and myself (supervisor and concept person). We put together the entire set and cast of characters from the Nightmare Before Christmas. I think we did a pretty darn good job! Click on the photos below to start the slide shows.

The Carvers Pose Before the Winners are Announced The Nightmare Before Christmas Diorama

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Past Years Masterpieces

Leticia's 2002 masterpiece. The lawn is broccoli, and the window boxes are apples with kale planted in them. Robert's 2002 cave painting. Like the house, this was also free-handed.
Half of the 2002 complete line-up. Scott & Joyce did this amazing panaroma with 2 small knight pumpkins, a huge dragon and a tall castle with a damsel in distress. We didn't put enough light in the dragon, and you can't make out what it is in the pictures. The other half. The nile goddess was my first attempt at free-hand carving. It was very simple, but I was still quite proud of myself!
Joyce's 2001 leaves design - reminiscent of Martha Stewart's creative genius. Jeff P's 2001 emoticon. It doesn't get any funnier than this (assuming you're a total geek of course).
The complete 2001 line-up. Chad's Phantom of the Opera on the white gourd was particularly clever. Leticia's 2000 Jack Skelington was a collaborative effort. Scott created the pattern, and Leticia carved it.
There were a lot of other great pumpkins in 2000, and this was just a pattern. But who can resist Tigger! Tigger comes compliments of Jason. Our complete 2000 works of art.

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