Tagged: carving

September 29, 2015

Girl Scout Daisies Watermelon

This weekend my kindergartner kiddo (my second) became a Daisy. It was sweet to see her so excited and happy to see her friends and her new troop. The ceremony was a potluck and I promised to bring daisy themed fruit. I seriously considered just making a fruit arrangement but for the amount of people that were there, I figured I should try to merge that idea into a watermelon which served more people. This was the result 🙂

In this fruit bowl, I put in watermelon, pineapple and green grapes. I had a few extra red grapes from our weekly fruit so I used it for the center. I then carved the leaves around the middle. To garnish it a bit, I used green grapes at the bottom to sort of mimic leaves. I used toothpicks to attach the three bottom daisies to the watermelon and then used skewers to raise up the daisies in the back.

In this carving, I used:

Share on Tumblr

September 14, 2015

Tropical End of Summer Watermelon

For the end of the summer, some good friends threw a potluck pool party. I’m a potluck one-trick-pony by this point and decided to take advantage of the possibly last of the good watermelons of the summer. I wanted something slightly summer themed and found a great image of a pineapple parrot on the web. A MUST DO! So here it is, an end-of-summer, tropical themed fruit plate.

First, an up-close of my favorite part, the parrot!

As you can see, it’s made from the top of a pineapple. This is how I did it:

Cut the top of the pineapple off the body. I cut about 4 inches down to be conservative in allowing myself enough room to make a head.
Carve away the pineapple into a dome. Remember, this is the parrot’s head, so I made it slightly oblong so that it flowed into the beak.
Using kitchen shears, cut off all the leaves closest to the head. Try to cut some long because we will be using those later for the wings.
Carve a small carrot into a beak-like shape. I used a curved carving knife. Remember that parrots have hooked beaks so try to make sure you curve the beak. I also added a bottom beak from a small piece of carrot.
Attach the carrot with a half of a toothpick (or if you have 2 pieces, two halves of a toothpick). I put the pointy part into the carrot and the blunt part into the watermelon.
Place the long pieces of the cut leaves in the position of wings. I cut them so there was a small, medium, and long one. To place them I simply tucked them in between the cut pieces.
I was going to use blueberries originally for the eyes, but they were huge. I used candy eyes. I made a little cuts into the pineapple for eye sockets. Careful if you use candy; they don’t do well in wet places (the black middle could run) so be careful when you place them. They held up throughout the party though, until my kiddos ate them 😉
Place the parrot on the watermelon bowl with two toothpicks.

Here is the fruit salad with bowl; I used watermelon (balled), strawberries, red grapes, and green grapes. I used soem of the green grapes too, to look like leaves around the watermelon bowl.

For this fruit salad I used:

Share on Tumblr

February 2, 2015

Super (Watermelon) Bowl

Congrats, Pats!

Once again, it was Super Bowl! I’ll be completely honest again: I am not a football fan… BUT I am a fan of Super Bowl parties. Full-family get-togethers with some of my favorite families, including jumpy houses that will tire the kiddos out (and a frozen slushy margarita machine?!). Yes, please!

Once again, a potluck watermelon to the rescue. This year, I had a whole idea in mind that included the idea of a pigskin, but yeah, that did NOT work out. I even started to make it a tutorial but alas, big fail made me re-evaluate the design and do over the other 3/4 of the watermelon for a more traditional design.

Originally, it was just the football but then it looked so eh, that I decided to carve out the team logos as embellishments. If I had had more time, I think I would’ve reworked the design to have different levels. However I came up with this in a pinch.

I know it looks like the carvings took longer than anything, but really it was minimum effort, maximum impact—using the right tools, it was much easier than it looks. Instead, what took forever and a half was the watermelon football (there’s no tool that I know of that makes a football shaped watermelon!). It is REALLY difficult to get a proper football shape… very few wrong cuts can totally change the look of it. Also… um, I completely forgot (in my football shape fervor) to leave the white parts of the watermelon to make the white parts of the football (oops!) so I took the rind and cut it up in strips and improvised (attaching the rind with toothpicks). Lots of improvisation on this one!

In this watermelon, I used:

Share on Tumblr

October 14, 2014

A Witchy Watermelon

A fun kid’s Halloween party potluck inspired a full-on search for a non-scary watermelon carving for inspiration. I found one design of a witch throwing up fruit salad and it was a fun nod to a puking pumpkin designs I’ve seen, so I did my little spin on it. This time of the year, I can never find large watermelon. Costco, instead, had two little soccer-ball sized ones. I had to improvise a bit with the design by using a cupcake stand to lift up the watermelon from the rest of the fruit salad (so she didn’t get buried) and I had to use a witch hat headband instead of a regular witch hat.

Last week was absolute murder as far as time, so she isn’t as detailed as I would like. I’m going to try this one again, I think.

How I made this watermelon: She was super quick!

First, I made her sit flat by slicing off a piece of the bottom. I also angled that cut a bit so she would look like her head was a tad bit tilted toward the salad.
I cut out a hole for the mouth. I scooped out the watermelon through both openings. I usually use a watermelon baller for nice watermelon presentation but she’s supposed to be throwing up, right? So chunks 🙂 I actually used both watermelons as one was not enough.
I carved some eye whites (sclera) and split a large grape in two and made them the eyes. The pupils were just a tiny bit of edible dough I have and the highlights on the eyes were ghost sprinkles. The eyes are attached with toothpicks.
The nose was half of the slice I took off the bottom. I stuck it on with a toothpick.
Carved the eyebrows and tinted them a bit with brown edible marker so we can see it easier.
I put a mini witch hat fascinator on her because an adult’s witch hat was waaaay too big. I made this one myself, but there are tons of them for sale now-a-days.

Today I used:

Share on Tumblr

June 6, 2014

Watermelon Flowers All Over the Place

So I’ve been watermelon crazy for a bit now, which is funny, because I don’t really care for watermelon (I’m more a berry type of girl), but I am really loving carving it! It’s actually a skill that doesn’t come easy to me and I really like the challenge of a completely new medium and working with a totally foreign tool (I don’t use knives much in my work). It’s been really fun to do potluck watermelons so far.

Yesterday our elementary school had an event for parent volunteers and asked us each to bring a dish for six people. I brought these little cups full of blackberries, grapes, watermelons, and golden honeydews (with blueberry middles), in the shape of flowers. Super easy to do and a little fun for the kids. I think they might be great for a fairy, garden, or butterfly themed birthday as well.

Instructions

Using a melon baller, make watermelon balls (my baller has two sizes, I used the smaller one)
Layer blackberries, grapes and watermelons on top.
Use flower cutter to cut out flowers from honeydew melon. Err on the side of thicker slices/flowers.
Using a skewer (or long toothpick), use the blunt side to skewer the flower and then stick it into the fruit. I used grapes to anchor the flower, since they were the firmest fruit in the cup.
Cut a blueberry in half. You don’t need anything to stick them on, just place them in the middles… the suction of the berry and the melon is enough to keep them on.
Cut a green grape in half and trim them so they have a leaf shape.
Place grape “leaves” at the base of the stem, using other fruit to prop them up.

I had bought personal watermelons for this, and part of the melon was just big enough to fit in the middle compartment of this (dollar store!) platter. So I carved a small rose with some leaves. A note about personal watermelons: they seem to be quite soft and easy to carve… which is good and bad. Good because you don’t need a lot of pressure, bad because sometimes it’s quite easy to slip and cut something you don’t want to cut.

I *think* people liked them because they were gone in less than five minutes (or however long it took me to get my and the kiddos’ plates of food ready).

The watermelon below was actually one I bought just for practice. I wanted to see what I could do if I dedicated the time to carefully carve without the pressure of getting everyone ready to go to a party. It came out better than they previously had and I took time to learn how to really carve with some great tutorials on youtube.

The watermelon below is one I brought to our family’s Mother’s Day celebration. It was supposed to be a rose… but it went downhill fast right after I started carving the middle, so improvisation! It ended up a much easier daisy. It was my first attempt at a rose and when I found out it was a LOT harder than it looks. Not the worst design, though.

Happy carving!

For these projects I used:

Share on Tumblr

May 6, 2014

Watermelon Shark

Watermelons are back in season! Summer+potluck = watermelon carving. I used to take cupcakes to potlucks but I like bringing fruit because I know my kids will eat it (I know they’ll eat cupcakes too, but I kinda feel better about them eating the fruit) and because it takes a lot less time to carve one large watermelon instead of decorating 25 little cupcakes. So for a friend’s housewarming, I thought I’d do a fun summer shark, which I’ve never had an excuse to do before. In it, I put watermelon balls, cantaloupe balls (and big and tiny fish), and grapes.

I am particularly digging the big fish in his mouth. It was silly, but totally necessary. Here is a detail shot.

All in all, it’s totally fun to do these watermelons. I expect to do more through the summer!

Share on Tumblr

February 2, 2014

Superbowl Sunday

Ahh Superbowl Sunday. A day I will never, ever understand. I have very little idea of what goes on in football and really, barely know who’s playing. However, some friends are having a Superbowl party (with bouncy house!) and you say potluck and helmet, well, gee, I gotta think watermelon fruit tray. So here is my one big tribute to Superbowl Sunday… a watermelon helmet.

Note: This watermelon helmet is nowhere near the size it would be in the summer. It’s probably the size of a (ironically) soccer ball, which is as big as watermelons get around here, apparently, in the winter. Fortunately, though, it was pretty sweet still.

Update: An awesome video tutorial by the National Watermelon Board, right here! Written instructions here.

Share on Tumblr

September 22, 2013

Potluck Watermelons

I had two back-to-back potlucks this weekend. Yesterday, we had a school activity bbq type of thing and we had to bring something to the potluck so I thought that fruit would be nice, and, pumped by my recent apple carving, I decided to make an owl watermelon bowl. He came out pretty good, I think. Apparently, there is National Watermelon Promotion Board, and they have a TON of ideas of how to carve a watermelon. I liked their owl idea but I didn’t like that the eyes were made of Oreos… I’m a fruit purist when it comes to watermelon sculptures? Anyhow, I changed the eyes and the beak and the feet up a bit and I came up with this:

I wish I had taken a 3/4 shot so we could see the fruit holding part (which was half the back). Anyhow, instead of Oreos, I put orange slices for eyes with black grapes, orange feet, and a carrot beak. The apple I had carved the day before (it was the other half of the Flower Power bento). So I just put it in for a little more decoration (since I had tried to make some kiwi lotuses and they just did NOT work). In the owl, I used a watermelon (balled), green grape, and black grape salad.

Today’s potluck was for a good friend’s babyshower who was on her third baby but had never had a babyshower because she’s from Sweden, where babyshowers aren’t very common. So some friends and I threw one for her and made it a potluck. Everyone contributed a bit and some of my super talented friends made gorgeous animal shaped cookies and beautiful cakes. It was so inspiring! My contribution was a baby in a carriage. Not my own original idea (hello, Pinterest!) but one I always wanted to try.

All the ones out there that I had seen always looked a little creepy, though, with blueberries for eyes (or just black grapes) and seriously looked like they were just staring out blankly into space. So my addition to this design was to add the white parts of the eyes so the baby didn’t look quite so… scary. For the whites I used white melting wafers (white chocolate) and for the highlights in the eyes (which I believe makes a big difference) I used a ghost shaped sprinkle (Halloween sprinkles). I also saw online that some people would put lace around the watermelon to give it a more detailed feel but like I said, I’m a fruit sculpture purist, so I decided to skip the lace and instead carved some detail out in the top of the watermelon. I think it looks a bit cleaner that way. Here is a detail of the face: