Above are the finished products. Creepy cool!

If I can create a head-turning jack o’lantern, anyone can.

I abhor handiwork and shun any type of project that requires tedious detail work using my hands (I unravel just thinking about knitting!). But using the popular Pumpkin Masters tools and templates, even I look like a pumpkin-carving pro.

I purchased three pumpkins at Ebbert’s in St. Clairsville and enlisted the help of my brother — a longtime master carver — and his four children.

My niece, Jenna, and I scooped pumpkin guts galore and let the younger boys — ages 5 and 6 — play in the goop (my daughter refused!). Rather than creating the typical silly or scary jack o’lantern faces, we searched the Pumpkin Masters templates for designs that struck our fancies and also ones that fit our pumpkins’ sizes and shapes. My brother chose a moon and spider silhouette; my nephew Bryce set to work on a spooky drama mask design, and I picked out the easiest pattern I could find, a bat silhouette. About an hour and a half later, we stood on the porch and admired our work.

Here are some tips we found especially helpful:

1. Use little pieces of tape and secure the pattern to the pumpkin in many places to help transfer it successfully.

2. Pounce on the pounce wheel: This little tool, available in the Pumpkin Masters Pumpkin Carving Kit, saves loads of time by allowing you to transfer the pattern by rolling the jagged-edged wheel along the pattern rather than having to poke individual holes over and over.

3. Using the small serrated-edge saw blades allows much more cutting control. We used to use big smooth-edged knives, which not only slipped and ruined the pattern but also were quite dangerous.

4. Saw straight toward the center of the pumpkin. My blade kept slanting so that when I removed the cutout, instead of seeing through to the inside, you could see mostly pumpkin flesh.

Our daddy-, mommy- and baby-sized pumpkins await carving, left. At right, my brother works on his spider pattern.