DIY Party Pumpkin Cooler
 
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Use a serrated knife to cut around the top of the pumpkin. You want to cut lower than you normally would so there will be enough room to fit beverages in your pumpkin cooler.
  2. Remove the seeds and pulp from the pumpkin. Set aside in a large bowl to make roasted pumpkin seeds later.
  3. Check to make sure your bowl will fit into the opening of the pumpkin. If the bowl is a bit too large, carefully use a knife and spoon to trim and carve away some of the inside flesh until the bowl fits in. *If you do not have any bowl that will fit the pumpkin you brought home, you can use a large plastic bag to line the inside (you won’t end up seeing either the bowl or the bag once you add the ice to the cooler).
  4. Figure out how you want to decorate the front exterior of the pumpkin. This is where you can get as imaginative as your skills allow! Are you artistic? Grab a paintbrush and show your skills off. Don’t think you can pull off a spooktacular paint job? Grab some carving tools instead. You can use almost anything you can think of (I have a couple links in this post that may be helpful, including using beans or duck tape to decorate your pumpkin.)
  5. For this project, I used my imagination and my carving tools to create an amazing Scratch Mommy Pumpkin Cooler! I used a pencil to carefully draw each letter onto the exterior of the pumpkin. Then I used a small, very sharp paring knife to cut / score along the outlines of the letters and design and to pop out the rind and flesh of each letter. A small carving tool (all I had to use was a lobster meat pick...but it worked well enough) helped me be able to scoop out some of the exterior flesh. I used my fingernails to smooth out the flesh in the letters as much as possible. The trick you want to remember is to not cut or carve all the way through the pumpkin flesh (and into the interior part of the cooler). You just want to scrape out enough flesh to serve your purpose.
  6. Once the carving was finished, I figured out which of my bowls fit best inside of it. I had to do some additional carving away of the interior flesh, around the pumpkin, to be able to push the bowl down inside. It was a tight fit, but it worked!
  7. When you are ready for your guests to arrive place your amazing pumpkin cooler on your table with a round platter underneath it (it will sweat a bit from the ice as time progresses). Add some ice to the bowl, add your beverages, arrange them to look nice, and fill in the rest of the space with more ice. Your guests will marvel at your mad pumpkin skills and the cooler will be a discussion point all night (or day) long.
  8. When you are done with your pumpkin cooler after your gathering, make sure to display it on your porch or even inside your house as part of your October decor.
Recipe by Scratch Mommy at https://scratchmommy.com/diy-party-pumpkin-cooler/