It is so fun to pick a pumpkin out and carve it into a spooky or funny design. To have it turn out successful it is handy to have a pattern or design.
Yesterday we talked about how to carve a pumpkin using a pattern or design. (See Yesterday’s Blog Article: Pumpkin Carving Tips and Digital Scrapbooking)
In this article, we are going to talk about making your own pumpkin-pattern or design in Photoshop Elements! And by the way, all the steps below in Photoshop Elements can also be done in Photoshop!
First of all, let me say that as a digital scrapbooker that uses both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements for digital scrapbooking projects, it’s really exciting to find new activity ideas beyond scrapping to also do in my same programs! Creating a pumpkin-carving pattern on my digital scrapbooking software, is just one more way to have fun and try new digital craft projects!
The pattern that will be reviewed below is so simple that it could even be made by a child! That’s great news, as it will make it super-easy on you, and can be a great way to get your children involved in creating their own pumpkin pattern as well!
Just a reminder: While the pumpkin-carving example below is going to be extremely simple, your pumpkin-carving design doesn’t have to be. My lesson will review a simple-start, but feel free to use the same steps to make an elaborate pattern for a fancier-looking pumpkin!
Steps to Make a Pumpkin Pattern:
Here are the Steps for Making a Simple Pumpkin Pattern in Photoshop Elements. (Remember Photoshop users can do the same steps too)
Step 1: Open Elements (or Photoshop ) and create a new document. I find that making a page that is printable with my home printer is easiest.
In this example, I set the new document dimensions to fit a regular paper size, but selected a horizontal orientation instead of vertical orientation. So that is 11 x 8.5 inches.
Step 2: Pick the custom shape tool and select a shape. Like the triangle shape.
The shape tool in both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements has lot of different shapes, so it’s incredibly easy to get creative and pick very interesting shapes! Although you can always chose a standard triangle shape, feel free to try any shape that interests you.
Remember, you can even get fancy and add shapes, subtract shapes, or intersect shapes to create new shapes. You might want to experiment with this for a more elaborate-looking pumpkin pattern!
But for this example we will pick the simple triangle shape to start with.
Step 3: Draw out your shape on your document. . In this example, I added the triangle shape two times to create the pumpkin’s eyes.
Again this is so simple you can even have young children get involved in making their pumpkin patterns. This is especially nice for them to feel apart of this process if they are to young too use the knife to cut out the pattern. This way if an adult does the cutting, they will feel like they did the important designing part!
Step 4: Pick other shapes to make other 
parts of the pumpkin face pattern. Next I selected the custom shape tool again, but picked the moon shape this time. I went back to the document and drew out the shape on a different layer.
Then I got the move tool and rotated the moon shape around so it looked like more like mouth than a moon!
With small children you could stop here, or you could go a bit further still keeping it easy but making your design a little more fun!
Step 5: Add more detail to your design: Next, it was time to add a silly-looking tooth to my design. I selected a rectangle box shape.
I needed to change colors of this particular shape, and looked like the white background, so that I could place this shape into the mouth and have it look like tooth. If the tooth shape was black, I wouldn’t be able to see it on top of the mouth.
After drawing out the first shape, I got the move tool, and rotated the shape and placed in into the mouth.
I then duplicated the tooth layer, rotated it, and placed a second tooth in the mouth shape.
I repeated this a third time so that my pumpkin face pattern would have three teeth.
You could do this step as many times as you like!
You could also cut the tooth shape with the eraser tool in order to make the tooth look jagged or even cut at an angle.
Step 6: Add other parts to make your pattern more detailed.
I used the same method for the eyes as I had used for the teeth.
Only I used a more rounded shape to make the eyes have more detail.
Try using all sorts of shapes to create interesting shapes for your pumpkins face
Step 7: Add the finishing touch with a shape that can complete the face. When 
looking for a nose for my pumpkin pattern I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. But when I looked at one shape (sign 12) upside down it seem to be a perfect nose for my pumpkins face!
I did have to add it and rotate it upside down in order for it to work, but it did make an interesting nose!
Again you can get as fancy as you like with your pumpkin face designs.
Just use your imagination!
Step 8: Print out your pumpkin pattern. Now you are ready to print your design and get it ready to put on your pumpkin.
I think this silly pumpkin face pattern is as cute as some the basic patterns found online and mentioned in yesterday’s blog.
However, I made this, so it’s special and hey, it’s free! Another way I could make this pumpkin even more personalized, would be to add some text. Perhaps I could write “BOO!” in big bold letters next to the mouth, or even add my name. The design is totally up to me! And the same goes for yours! Create a pumpkin pattern that is original and personalized especially for you and your kids!
Step 9: Tape to pumpkin and punch holes to follow the design so that carving your design in your pumpkin will turn out as you had imagined – see yesterdays blog for these steps!
Other ideas to make pumpkin patterns and designs in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements:
Other ideas to help you make fun pumpkin patterns:
- Use the Text Tool to create some interesting Words for your pumpkin pattern or use Symbol fonts for more shape! See this blog article on Symbol Fonts: Creating Custom Brushes with Symbol Fonts for Digital Scrapbooking
- Use Photoshop Art Brushes and hand draw or paint shapes and make designs freehand style.
- Use Custom “Stamp” Brushes to “stamp” on a Halloween Design. These can be used a lot like how you would use the shape tool – just make sure to “stamp” each of them on their own layer so you can move them and resize them.
Buy these Halloween Brushes at the Scrap Shop.
Making Pumpkin Patterns to create your own special personalized design is fun and easy. It can help children feel part of the process and can encourage teenagers to join in with family activities! And for adults, taking the time to make a personalized pumpkin design can help unleash the genius artist in us! Give it a try this year!
Have fun this Halloween and be extra careful when carving those pumpkin designs!
Happy Halloween!
Cheri
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