outdoors

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No-Carve Pumpkins

Kids and knives don’t mix, so Holly offers

a safe option: “I pour paint in muffin tins,

set out fat brushes, and let the kids go

wild.” Another kid-friendly tool includes old

lipsticks (for fashionista squashes) and nails

and screws (for that horror-film effect).

STACK PACK Like the vegetable equivalent of a snowman, flat

pumpkins are set on top of each other,

right

— an arrangement

anyone can pull off. Holly also clusters around the yard

groups of different sizes and colors, any one o f which could

become the target of a carving tool or a paintbrush.

FALL BOUQUETS Poke a hole in the top o f a pumpkin with

a screwdriver and insert branches of bright fall foliage,

below.

HAPPY FACES Quinn,

below right,

and a friend paint pumpkins

on a hay-bale table. Bales also make excellent overflow seating

1 0 8 OCTOBER 2009 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS