Last year, we had a pumpkin carving contest here at Tiny Prints that brought out the creativity in all of us. In fact, there wasn’t a single traditional jack-o-lantern in the bunch!

The winning design was this intricate carving of an underwater scene:

We still aren’t sure how the winning team managed to make such a cool design, but we also had a few more seasonal pumpkin characters that you and your family could easily replicate this year:

To make this charming black cat:

• Carve cat eyes into a small pumpkin that will serve as the head
• Use black spray paint to cover the head, one large pumpkin as the body, a pair of small pumpkins as paws and a zucchini as the tail.
• Attach paper ears and use wood skewers as whiskers.
• Light a candle and place it inside the cat’s head to see it’s eyes glow!

To make a pumpkin owl:

• Scoop out the inside of the pumpkin
• Carve V-shaped feathers into the owl’s chest and reserve two V’s to attach to the owl’s head as ears
• Drill two holes into the face of the pumpkin and attach two small pumpkins as eyes. If the stems of the small pumpkins aren’t long enough to stay in the drilled hole (like ours were!), secure them to the back of the pumpkin using wood skewers.
• Use leftover pumpkin chunks from either the top of the pumpkin or the V-shaped feathers as feet and a little beak
• Add a Tootsie Pop for a charming finishing touch!

Plus, if you’re hosting a pumpkin carving party of your own, don’t forget to send cute Halloween party invitations to match!

Who doesn’t love IKEA? With such fun, funky products and insanely affordable prices, IKEA has become an important part of decorating modern metropolitan homes across the country.

But, since everyone knows and loves IKEA, sometimes it can get embarrassing when guests can recite the price, bin and aisle number of every piece of furniture in your home.

Enter the IKEA hacker—this genius blogger has collected all kinds of information about decorating using IKEA products in imaginative new ways. We love her cute, creative ideas, like this one for transforming stuffed animals into USB drives to make them kid-friendly and super cuddly!

You can find more ideas (and submit your own) at http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/.

One of our honorary Creative team members brought in these adorable hamburger cupcakes on Friday to celebrate the end of the week!

Made out of cupcakes, brownies and colored frosting, these little treats were the perfect pick me up. She even made sugar cookie fries to go with them! Delicious!