39 pumpkin carving ideas you need to master ahead of Halloween

Pumpkin carving is one of the multiple opportunities we have to attempt being crafty at Halloween. First there's the DIY house party decorations, which involves turning bin bags into spiders' webs and plastic gloves into ice sculptures. Then there's the Halloween cake recipes, which really test our confidence when it comes to being nifty with a piping bag of icing. And who could forget the Halloween cocktails, which is basically just an opportunity to drink a lot of booze while making witch-like concoctions.

If you're looking for pumpkin carving ideas for making yours the best this October, look no further than our round up of the 28 best. There are easy pumpkin carving ideas that focus on your classic cat-with-whiskers idea, or there are more advanced options that involve carving a bit of the pumpkin away without going all the way through. Oh, and then there are the carving ideas that involve multiple pumpkins, props and even paint! Sadly, we're not sure we're ever going to be advanced enough for anything other than the old triangle eyes and funny mouth but hey, we can still look, right? Happy haunting.

(Oh and btw if this all looks like too much of a faff for you then you could always try one of these no-carve pumpkin ideas instead.)