New York City stylist Marissa Corwin put a cheeky spin on the very word jack-o’-lantern with her three glowing silhouettes of old-school lamps. “They’re a bit more sophisticated than your average spooky face — something adults can appreciate, too,” she says. The how-to:
1. Cut your pumpkin around the stem, remove the top, and scoop out the pulp. (Or to avoid visible cut lines, carve a hole out of the bottom of the pumpkin and remove the pulp that way.)
2. Print the desired lantern template and resize it on a copier, scaling the image to fit your pumpkin.
3. Cut out the stencil as directed on the template and center it on the pumpkin, affixing it with masking tape. Outline the shape of the stencil onto the pumpkin with a fine-point Sharpie.
4. With the stencil still affixed to the pumpkin, use an awl to punch through the asterisks marked at the top of the lantern.
5. Remove the stencil and carve out the pane(s) of the lantern, following the lines you drew.
6. Then carefully fill in the design using a fine-tip brush and black flat acrylic craft paint, and let dry.
7. Light the pumpkin with a two- by three-inch battery-operated votive candle. If you’ve removed the pumpkin’s top, fit it back into place.
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