Thai Carving Techniques On Melons And Squash

It is a good time in September to practise thai carving techniques on fruit and vegetables. There are a few reasons why you should to do that in September.

1. It is a harvest time. You can get vegetables for free from your garden. We grow pumpkins and squash ourselves. They are easy to cultivate. 

Pick medium size squash for improving your carving skills. It is a pleasure to carve on its soft skin.

2. September is perfect time to give farmer market a visit. You will come across amazingly cute baby pumpkins and squash there that will give you an idea for new creating. 

Why I say the squash and young pumpkins are perfect for THAI carving is that they are the right condition for carving the intricate Thai designs. Just take a time to compare a soft squash with a hard-as-stone watermelon which usually grown on western continents. You will understand what I am talikng about. The other reason for the squash is it's price. The squash and pumpkins are cheaper than watrmelon.

After improving your knife skills on squash you will be much confident with carving watermelons. With having more carving pracice you are able to carve beautiful designs and you can do it for money.

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Pumpkin Lights

Do you do pumpkin lights for Halloween only? 

I carve pumpkins every time when I get one to my hands. I can't miss the amazing season of the Fall festivals, harvest fairs and Halloween. The baby pumpkins are my favorite materials. I hunt for them at the local farmer markets or at my mom's garden, and sometimes bring them from the other countries (huh, that sounds like a pumpkin addiction).

These lights were my very first try of carving pumpkins. To do this I picked up dark green pumpkins of a size right of a candle to set inside.

The baby pumpkins are soft, easy and fast to work with. For your first pumpkin designs you may want to choose simple tattoo images as a scorpion, Hard Rock's heart, flowers and any suitable patterns
.
Silly faces and Moon cat are the must-have images for Halloween along with a spider on the net and all of "Boo" and "Spooky".
You will quickly turn a few small pumpkins to the lights in an hour.

Enjoy your pumpkin carving together with your family members. Remember to take photographs of yours with pumpkins to save remembrances of the wonderful time you spent together.

Pumkin lights of the baby pumkins


Designs For Pumpkin Lights

Scorpion pumpkin light, a tattoo image 

A simple patterrn can be drawn on the pumpkin 

A traditional Jack-O-Lantern looks perfect on baby pumpkins

A silly face pumpkin pattern

Use tattoo srencils to carve pimpkin lights

Bewitched pumpkin pattern

These two lines make a cat figure. 

I think it is a great looking pattern for carving pumpkin

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Wedding Watermelon With Birds, Evergreen Bar

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It was a wedding party at Evergreen Bar in Strawberry Hills. Evergreen Bar is a nice cozy place on the 3rd flour with large westward windows. There is a breathtaking view of the sunset from it.

The party was taken for a small circle of freinds and relatives. I carved a watermelon with birds pattern and Orange Sun fruit sculpturefor them.

More pictures from the party:

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Sea Theme Wedding Party, Olympia Park, August 2009

Wedding Fruit Buffet With Sea Themed Fruit Sculptures

It was a signifacnt day for Igor and Yana, a young couple whose wedding party was arranged in a marine style. The recieption hall was decorated with baloon figures in shape of octopus, shrimps and seahorses. The wedding flower bouquets were arranged in vases with sand and seashells. 

My job was to decorate a buffet table with fruit carving arrangements picturing underwater world. We decided on making the following fruit sculptures and platters as a watermelon sailing boat, coral reef and a melon shell with tropical fish.

The sailing boat was filled with watermelon balls.

The melon shell was displayed at the head table. It's a melon basket in shape of sea shell with treasure  inside and underwater inhabitants around as exotic fish, coral and weed.





Fish sculptures, hydranth, starfish, weed and corals made form fruits and vegetables.



On a bar desk we placed chocolate fountain. Each plate was decorated with a sea themed sculpture as crabs, fishes and corals.



Apart from my edible crafts there was a wonderful baked sailing boat made of dough.

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Three Wedding Parties at a Time

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The day I have decorated a wedding party with vegetable carving arrangement was rich for weddings. After finishing with the decorating in the cafe I took a walk to my favorite place in the town. It's an observation deck on the 10th floor of Mega Place Hotel. 4 stars Mega Palace hotel is considered to be the best hotel in Yuzhno. I love the city view from it roof. Green hills and the lake, the city park with cafe and strolling people from one side and the streets and buildings and Susunai Valley veiw from other side of the deck.

I was sitting on the deck when I saw a wedding limousine passing by and beeping. The car was decorated with white flowers and swans on a bamper.



I looked around and noticed another wedding car parked by hotel.


I turned on my camera just in case and came down. The round hall on the 10th floor was engaged for the wedding party. It was a romantic place with a transparate roof and stars and the moon might be visible through it in nights. The restaurant hall was awaiting guests and the personnel were puting the finishing strokes.






This is a fire extinguisher in the hall




I came down to lobby and found it crowd and noisy. The white limousine brought a couple and something was going on there.

Women in traditional russian dresses were singing and greeting the couple. The bride wrote her maiden name on a baloon and let it fly away saying goodby to her single life.

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Wedding Party Decoration

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This Saturday I was busy with a wedding party decoration. They have a big stand for fruits in the restaurant. On the top I adjusted a vegetable carving arrangement. There are tulips from red peppers, lilly from daikon, chrysanthemum from beijing cabbage, callas from a cabbage and some carrot garnishes in the bouquet. The color of the edible flowers fits the interior of the party very well.

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How To Make Apple Vase

Before carving apples check out how to prevent apples from browning for a long period of time

and other article how to spray apple carving with lemon juice

For the Apple Vase you need one apple and thai knife. The vase can be filled with berries. At the Barmen Show they served a cocktail in it.

Tools: thai knife and a melon baller.







Step 1. Carve out several segments around the apple stalk.

Step 2. Outline the segments using thai knife. You will get a detail in a shape of the flower

Step 3. Cut the apple top off and remove unwanted parts from the apple flower.

Step 4. Clear out the apple bowl with a melon baller.

Step 5. Fill the vase with some berries and fruits. Pin the apple flower to the vase with a toothpick. Garnish toothpick with a cherry.

Add some cream on top. Dessert is ready

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Fruit Plate With Apple Decoration

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The main garnish on this plate is a 'pineapple styled' apple. That kind of apple garnish gives unusual look to any fruit plate. The apple-pineapple attracts kids and adults. To make this effect on apple skin you need to have special carving tools.

If you want to learn the fruit art see step by step instrutions.

Ingridients:
Apple,
Oranges,
Grapes
Apple skin for rose decorations
Carrot for a flower garnish

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Fruit Plate With Orange Skin Decoration

Do you recognize the orange star decoration made of orange skin? I use it to garnish fruit plate.
The fruit buffet to the chocolate fountain.

Ingridients:
Apple,
Nectarine,
Green grapes,
Kiwi and orange skin for decor

Tools:
Thai knife,
Crinkle knife for cubes

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Fruit Carving Displays and Vegetable Arrangements Video

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Melon Basket With Leaves Pattern

Please enjoy a new video with fruit carving arrangements and the blog presentation.

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Melon Basket With Leaf Pattern

In my carving class I have a lesson on crarving a leaf from a cucumber using carving tools.
The leaf pattern is built on contrast and can be carved on any dark skin.
I did it in melon, the handle of the melon basket is decorated with the leaf pattern.

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Kids Carving Class

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Wonder-Tree

Kids enjoy making edible creations too. Anastasia is 10 years old. She made an apple swan, a butterfly, leaves from cucumber and carrot, 3D flowers, mashrooms and some easy garnishes. On the pictures Anastasia is demonstrating her carvings.

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