Fall produces a lot of wonderful pumpkins for decorating. Why not make a romantic centerpiece for your table?

Materials:
1 small pumpkin
Pumpkin carving knife
Spoon (to clean out pumpkin)
A small assortment of flowers
1 LED tealight candle (Not a real tealight candle)

Rinse off the pumpkin, then carve a large hole in the top around the stem. Gently pull off the “lid” and toss out. Clean out pumpkin seeds using a spoon, and scissors if need be. Put pumpkin seeds in a dish to be baked later. (See recipe below.)

With a pencil or pen, lightly draw your design on the pumpkin. Make it a heart, a message, or something that is symbolic of your love. Carefully carve it out of the pumpkin.

Get a bouquet of flowers and cut the stems. Note that these flowers won’t last very long without water. You can use fake flowers if you’d like, or simply leave the flowers in the centerpiece for the duration of dinner and then put them into a vase afterward.

Needless to say, don’t use a candle in this pumpkin while there are flowers in it. For a firelight flickering effect, use an LED candle.

Pumpkin Seed Recipe: Put pumpkin seeds in a strainer and rinse, removing the excess pumpkin membrane. Spread out pumpkin seeds on a greased cookie sheet, add some salt, and put in the oven at 350° for about 15 minutes.