How to use the pumpkin stencil maker
- Type a name, a word or a house number (up to two short lines), or pick one of 15 icons.
- Choose your pumpkin: Small, Medium, Large or Giant, or measure yours with a string and type the numbers.
- Pick a letter style and how to cut it: cut out, outline, or etch only (shave the skin).
- Check the lit pumpkin, the size and the difficulty. If a warning shows up, one click fixes it.
- Download the PDF and print it at 100% (Actual size). Check the 1-inch bar with a ruler.
How to transfer the stencil and carve
Cut the lid and clean out the seeds first. Then scrape the inside wall where you will carve to about 1 inch thick, so the saw goes through easily and shaved parts glow (Missouri S&T (opens in a new tab)).
Trim the paper and tape it on. Make small cuts in the paper edges so it lies flat on the round pumpkin. Poke holes about 1/8 inch apart along every edge with a nail, skewer or pin, through the paper into the skin, then take the paper off (Pumpkin Cuts (opens in a new tab)). A little flour rubbed into the holes makes them easier to see.
Cut the small parts in the middle first and work outward, with a gentle sawing motion. At a sharp corner, pull the saw out and put it back in at the new angle. Push the pieces out from the inside. If a piece breaks off by accident, a toothpick pins it back (Pumpkin Cuts). Leave the bridges: they are what keeps the middle of your letters in place.
Why letters fall apart, and what bridges do
Cut around the outside of an O and the inside of an O, and the middle has nothing left to hold it: it falls in. The same happens with A, B, D, P, Q, R, 0, 4, 6, 8 and 9. A bridge is a strip of pumpkin we leave across the cut, so the middle stays attached. We place them the way stencil fonts do: an O gets one at the top and one at the bottom, an A one through its crossbar, a B one or two per bowl.
Bridges are as wide as your tool and pumpkin need: at least 6 mm for a kids' kit saw and 4 mm for a detail knife, and wider on bigger pumpkins, whose walls are thicker. Choose Sturdy for 50% wider bridges on a soft pumpkin or for young helpers. We also keep at least one bridge width of pumpkin between letters, so no hairline of skin is left to snap, and every stencil is checked for floating pieces before you can download it.
How we size the stencil to your pumpkin
We use the front quarter of your pumpkin's width and the middle of its height. In numbers: the usable front is the distance around ÷ 4 wide and 60% of the height tall, and the design fills up to 90% of that. Short words are capped so one letter is not taller than 45% of the front.
If your design is wider than the front, the paper bends around the side. We show how far: a stencil W wide on a pumpkin C around covers W ÷ C × 360°. Up to about 100° reads well from the front; past that the sides of the word turn away from you, which the lit preview shows.
These are our defaults, not facts
The preset pumpkins (Small 7 × 24 in, Medium 9 × 32 in, Large 11 × 40 in, Giant 15 × 55 in, height × around), the front-face rule, the smallest widths we let each tool cut (6 mm for a kit saw, 3 mm for a knife), the bridge widths, the 12.7 mm printer margin and the difficulty weights are our own engineering choices. Other stencil makers offer 3, 5 or 6 mm bridges and note that pieces under about 1/8 inch are very hard to carve (Meadow Tools (opens in a new tab)); our numbers are deliberately on the safe side. Measure your own pumpkin for the best fit.
What the difficulty rating means
We measure the stencil at the size you will print, for the tool you will use: how long the cutting path is, how many pieces come out, how many bridges you must keep, how many tight corners there are (sharper than 70°), and any parts thinner than your tool can manage. Thin parts always make it at least Hard.
| Level | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| 1 · Easy | A face or a short word in big letters. A first carving. |
| 2 · Moderate | A name or number with a few bridges. An afternoon with the kit saw. |
| 3 · Tricky | Long words, many pieces or the Spooky style with a kit saw. Take your time. |
| 4 · Hard | Has parts thinner than your tool handles well, or a lot of detail. Try bigger, Block or Sturdy. |
| 5 · Expert | Small letters, two long lines and thin parts together. For patient grown-ups with a detail knife. |
Safety
Kids draw, grown-ups cut.
Small children can draw the face and scoop the seeds; leave the cutting to adults (American Academy of Pediatrics (opens in a new tab)). Light it with a battery candle, flashlight or glow stick (AAP (opens in a new tab), NFPA (opens in a new tab)).
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