Contests & Give-Aways

Winner! Bob Vila's First Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest

From movie villains to Mickey Mouse, cannibal pumpkins to true works of art, we finally found the ultimate King of Carving—and a few honorable mentions to boot.

By Kristina Grosspietsch

Honorable Mentions

1/10

To all you pumpkin-carving connoisseurs and jack-o'-lantern maestros out there, thank you for your submissions! Your pumpkins really blew us away, making our decision all the more difficult. So on top of unveiling the triumphant "King or Queen of Carving", we've gathered some of other favorites too, so you can love them as much as we did.

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Best Kid-Friendly Pumpkin

2/10

America's favorite rodent makes a special Halloween appearance on this fantastic pumpkin. It may not be the scariest on the block, but it's certain to have been the biggest hit with the kids.

Rick Brink

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Best Use of Pumpkin Stem

3/10

Jack looked to the right, and then to the left. "Only a year until it's Halloween again," he whispered, eyes gleaming with malevolence and the promise of shenanigans.... We love a good stem-nosed pumpkin.

Adam Elmayan
Hungriest Jack O' Lantern

4/10

Sometimes a pumpkin gets a grumble in his belly, which can only be soothed by the crunch of another pumpkin. Some call him a cannibal; others, a gourmet. What we call him is a super creative jack-o'-lantern.

Joe Olinger

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Best Use of a Funkin

5/10

It may not technically be a pumpkin, but this 'funkin' carving is still so impressive. Using a Dremel drill, Scott etched the US Marine Corps Seal with such skill and care that we couldn't err in also naming his work Most Patriotic.

Scott Gerber
Biggest Fangs

6/10

Three-dimensional and quite frightening, this Cyclops pumpkin took our competition into high gear. With a single eye that glows when the lights are dimmed, this strangely haunting creation probably scared the pants off young trick-or-treaters on Halloween night.

Eric Henderson

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Jack O' Lantern Most Likely to Give Us Actual Nightmares

7/10

Why so serious?

David Harrison
Most Intricate

8/10

Not one, not two, but four ghoulish faces adorn this fantastic pumpkin-cum-sculpture. Halloween, schmalloween—this work of vegetable art deserves to be in a museum!

Mike Craghead

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Runner Up: Most Steampunk

9/10

Part squash, part 19th-century machine, and totally awesome, we present to you the Steam Pumpkins. No further description necessary.

Matt Lucas
Winner! Bob Vila's King of Carving

10/10

Congratulations to James Hall, King of Carving! Creative, realistic, and a little mind-boggling, his pumpkin functions as both sculpture and mask—that's right, he's actually wearing it on his head. "It was lighter than I expected," James tells us. Woah!

James Hall

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