fun & festive ideas for a pumpkin carving party

We had a fun and eventful weekend!

A few weeks ago, a friend of ours asked me if I was interested in designing and coordinating a Harvest Festival for our Community that she would be co-sponsoring  . . .  and I accepted.  So, I spent Saturday morning setting up for the Harvest Festival, and then we spent the afternoon with family celebrating my great- niece's 1st birthday (Happy Birthday, Kylie!).

I thought you might enjoy seeing a few fun & festive ideas and photos from the Harvest Festival . . . 

~ our backyard looked like a pumpkin patch for a few days before the Festival ~

~ Oh what fun our kids had with them! ~

pumpkin tags

Because I brought pumpkins from my home to decorate the dessert and activity tables, I had to figure out a creative way to "tag" the pumpkins that were for carving . . .  so I bought die-cut Fall leaves and hot glued them to jute rope, and then tied them to each pumpkin.

Each jute rope strand was unique and featured different colored leaves. Some strands had as few as three leaves, and others had up to six. There were quite pretty, especially when lined up all together on the pumpkin carving table.

bunting

I also made simple Halloween bunting for a few of the tables. You can see a tutorial here and here.

I hung one above the dessert table, and another one across the front of an information table.

For the dessert table, I secured tall wood dowels in small bales of hay so that I could swag several feet of burlap and bunting across the table. I also scattered loose hay, and stacked a few pumpkins on either side of the hay bales to complete a harvest look for the table.

~ the dessert menu ~

candied apples

chocolate chip cookies

sliced pumpkin pound cake

sliced chocolate swirl pound cake

Cinnamon crumb cake

petite brownie cups with cream cheese frosting and Fall sprinkles

knotted pretzels and cheese crackers

(I love this brown & orange combination for Fall!)

~ and ~

a basket of petite Pink Lady apples

pumpkin carving table 

Although there were festivities like face painting and a dance contest, pumpkin carving was the main event, so I spent a considerable amount of time creating an inviting table.

I'm a big fan of using wrapping paper to cover activity tables (please see here for more). It looks festive, and makes for easy clean-up! I chose a green with white polka dot pattern to cover the activity tables, and scattered BIG orange and purple gum balls and sixlets on the tables, since it's quite fun to chew on bubble gum and candy while you're carving away, right!? (smile).

I placed disposable cookie sheets at each place setting for easy clean-up . . . and small galvanized buckets that held pumpkin carving tools and markers were placed at every other pumpkin, so that there were plenty of carving tools for everyone!

Although I wasn't able to attend the event, I heard from my neighbors that it was a success.

I was lucky enough to arrive at the tail end to see lots of happy children . . . and special & unique carved pumpkins!

It was a great ending to a wonderful day!

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Simply Suzannes at Home

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