While this looks like the expert craftsmanship of contestants on Halloween Wars, we promise you'll be able to pull it off!

As a Halloween gift to our players, PopCap artists designed some nifty templates to make carving your favorite characters a much less daunting task!  Yesterday afternoon, our fearless Community team gathered to test out the templates before sharing them with the world.

Note: we don't actually recommend carving your pumpkins this early in the month. By Halloween, they'll look scary in a bad way!

All pumpkin carving starts with the messy fun of cleaning out the seeds and stringy stuff. Once you’ve got it hollowed out, choose your template and tape it on securely. Then you’ll want a simple pushpin to punch through the paper along the outlines, marking the pumpkin.

This is a labor of love. Love for Zombies, art, and you, fellow Zombie-lovers.

See the tiny little pinpricks along the outline of the Starrgh-fish? That's how you transfer the image on the page to the surface of the pumpkin before carving.

Look closely, and you can see the neat little lines showing him just where to carve!

So where can you go to get all these templates yourself?  Check out the Facebook fan pages for Plants vs. Zombies, Zuma Blitz, Solitaire Blitz, Bejeweled Blitz, and
Lucky Gem Casino over the days to come for posts sharing each game’s specific images, or download them directly from the links at the bottom of this post.

And finally, I’d like to leave you with some pumpkin-carving tips courtesy of our beloved Steve Notley:

To download each template, click the link for that character under the image:

Peashooter from Plants vs. Zombies

Sunflower from Plants vs. Zombies

Zombie from Plants vs. Zombies

Zuma Blitz Tiki

Zuma Blitz Frog

Hercules from Solitaire Blitz

Starrgh-fish from Solitaire Blitz

PopCap logo

Blue Gem from Bejeweled

Lucky Gem Casino Crown

If you’re looking for inspiration this year, here are a few of our past favorites:

And something we like almost as much as we like as dessert is pictures of dessert! It’s true. Sad. But true. So we were thrilled when people started posting pictures of delicious treats on our Pinterest boards.

Oh, yes. We are on the Pinterest. We have boards for Plants vs. Zombies food and for other PopCap fan creations. You should check them out and maybe post some of your own awesome stuff there.

But for now we want to share some really great cakes that people have posted.

First up is a Squash cake. We assume it isn’t squash flavored. He looks none too pleased with you.

It’s a sunshine day for this fun-dead friend!

Glad somebody got a photo of this one. It looks almost too good to eat. Almost. We aren’t crazy.

Poor ol’ zombie. Just wanted to go to a birthday party…

Please keep your hands away from this cake.

It can’t be all PvZ. Here’s a swell Bejeweled cake for Rachel who is either 25 years or 3 months old.

I can’t get enough of the squash cake. Never let it be said that I’m not five years behind on my internet memes.

Here it is again, a little closer.

Because we are process nerds, we contacted CJ to find out how she made it. This is that story:

“He is carved out of 1 lb EPS foam (that’s the white stuff made up of little beads.) I used a heated carving tool and a rasp. Once I got the shape right, I cut the accent markings from a very thin sheet of the same foam and hot glued them on. I sanded him down with 80 grit sand paper then brushed on a layer of thinned joint compound. When that dried, I sanded him again, this time with 220 grit sand paper. Then I repeated the joint compound and sanding step. Once he was smooth, Larry sprayed him with a two part epoxy hard coat. Finally I airbrushed him and applied a gloss top coat. The joint compound and hard coat are what make him look like he is made out of something other than Styrofoam. The airbrush paint I used had a pearlized finish – I don’t know if you could tell in the picture, but he looks like a glass Christmas ornament…. well a very large ornament! He was a lot of fun to make and brightens my day when I see him in the office.”

See? Simple!

Seriously, though, that is a great piece of work and we are impressed by the level of skill and artistry required to create it. We are also crazy jealous that we don’t have one.

When she is not creating Zuma frogs for her own enjoyment, CJ runs (with the aforementioned Larry) a company called Pirate’s Palette. “We paint backdrops, build and restore furniture, make props and sets, and create styrofoam sculptures. We originally started doing this work for theatre, but have branched out into other areas – signs, architectural ornamentation, trade show pieces… the applications are really limited only by imagination. And when it comes to Styrofoam, we can make anything.”

CJ was also very forthcoming about the challenges of her work which I am sure are things that nobody at PopCap could possibly relate to in any way. “My work isn’t without its share of stress. Deadlines can be killer. People call up asking for items in an impossible time frame. And people call wanting things that I have no clue how to accomplish, but I am not smart enough to say ‘No, I can’t do that.’ I take the job and we stress until we figure out how to make it happen. I am lucky enough to be surrounded by brilliant, imaginative people.”

You can check out more of CJ’s great work on the Pirate’s Palette site or on their Facebook page. Don’t miss the life-size Delorean with working gull-wing doors!

What is it? No one can say for sure. Well, that probably isn’t true but go with me here. Was it left here by aliens? Yes, let’s say that it was. It was left here by aliens with mad LEGO skillz. What does it want? It has a message for us, if only we would take the time to listen. Pay careful attention to this video and see if you can hear what it has to say.

Did you hear it? Is it a message of peace? Is it a cookbook? Does it just want a Pepsi? Help a blogger out.

First up, two variations on Conehead Zombie…

Emma H. made this one for the Zombie Walk in Stockholm.

Jim C. scaring all the neighbors.

And, a sweet little Wall-Nut “accessory”, from Larry M.

Check back again tomorrow for more Halloween fun!

So here’s a batch of dandy Plants vs. Zombies costumes from a few daring and creative souls. And this is just the first bunch. We’ll have even more in the next few days. Because you guys are awesome.

From Roy S. comes Young Dr. Zomboss

Back when he was still an intern.

From Terri H. we have Sunflower and friend.

No idea who the guy on the left is.

And from Brian C. we got the whole family involved. First, a tiny Sunflower.

We are getting cavities just looking at this.

A Jalapeño you do not want to cross.

I am large, I contain multitudes.

An apprentice Gargantuar.

Look in the bucket. LOOK IN THE BUCKET!

And one of the whole gang.

There is awesome on your lawn.

Thanks to everybody who sent in pictures (and, again, stay tuned for more). We’ve been grinning like idiots at your fantastic costumes!

It’s Lex – everyone’s favorite erudite invertebrate!

In addition to how super-cool Lex is (how about those Bookworm Adventures, right?), this costume had two other big things going for it: I’m much more adept with a needle and thread than with a hot glue gun, and I love neon.

A riot of color!

You will need: at least a yard of neon green fleece, a matching top (look in the athletic wear section), a red bow tie, some seriously dorky glasses, and various sewing supplies — needle, thread, one big button, and a bunch of safety pins. Oh, and a few rubber bands.

Like fitting yourself for a wedding dress... for a marriage to a Martian!

I started by wrapping the fleece around my midsection to measure where to put the button.  Place the button about an inch from the edge in each direction. Use a safety pin to mark where the button goes on the side of the fabric you won’t be cutting. Then use a second safety pin to mark where the overlapping fabric will hit the button — that’s where you’re going to make a buttonhole. It’s also where you should cut a triangular swath of fabric off the top.

Why triangular, rather than just cutting straight down? Because you don’t want this to be a straight-legged dress; it should get wider as it moves down. Also, that triangle of fabric will make you a nice scarf (if you don’t wind up with a big enough triangle for a scarf, there are other options for head decorations that we’ll cover later)!

Now sew the button on and make the buttonhole. This is simple enough, but don’t rush it, because an oops while cutting the buttonhole will be hard to fix.

A buttonhole should be just wide enough to accommodate the button. Stitch around the edges to keep them from widening.

Now, lay the skirt flat on the ground and button the button. Align the edges of the fabric from the button all the way down to the place where the triangular cut you made ends.

Starting a few inches below the button, use your safety pins to hold the fabric in this exact position.

Then take your needle and thread and make your seam along the path of safety pins.

Step back into the skirt and button it to make any final adjustments for length. With the button situated at the back, and the gradually flaring skirt dropping down, you will see that you have a long “tail” naturally forming at your heels! Gather it into a “ponytail” shape and use rubber bands to hold it in place at a few key points to better define the tail.

Thereby hangs a tail...

Once you’re in the shirt and skirt, put on your red bow tie, and your incredibly dorky glasses, then tie the extra triangle of fabric on your head like a bandana. If this won’t work because the triangle is too small, you can buy a bandana in this color, or you can try using the spray-on temporary hair color they sell at costume shops. I considered that myself, but the warning label said not to use it if you already dye your hair. (What, you thought this was my real color?)

This is a great costume — by far my favorite yet. It’s so comfortable, and the fleece will keep you nice and warm while you wander around on a chilly Halloween night! Plus, if you’re going trick-or-treating, the day-glo color is totally in line with pedestrian safety recommendations! And I kid you not, just try not to smile while draped head-to-toe in neon green. It’s impossible.

Have fun, Blog Riders and costume-makers!

This week, we decided to recreate a PopCap classic: Bejeweled. This costume was originally made by one of our writers, Steve Notley. We thought his costume was awesome and decided not to stray too far from his original idea.

Tada! A very happy game of Bejeweled.

Materials you need: at least 3 pieces of different-colored foam board (green, blue, orange, red, yellow, purple or white), a very sharp X-Acto knife (box cutters should work too), yarn or string to tie your gems together, a ruler, a nail file or emery board, and glittery paint.

I chose to make the blue, yellow and red gems as they seemed to be the easiest shapes. Which gems you choose are up to you.

Start by sketching out the shape of your gem on the white side of the foam board. Here’s what my sketch of the blue gem looked like:

I drew a line down the middle of the board so the gem would be as symmetrical as possible.

The next part is slightly difficult — foam board is a little hard to cut. So make sure you have a sharp blade (or better yet, multiple blades) for your X-Acto knife!

Tip: if you hold your knife up to a ruler, it will make cutting the foam board a little easier.

You should end up with something like this:

Pretty blue diamond!

Once you finish your first gem, the next few will go a little more quickly. Just repeat this process for your next two gems — you’ll need at least three gems for your Bejeweled costume to be accurate.

My three (un-matching) gems.

As shown in Steve’s picture above, one of these gems will have to go over your face. Choose whichever color you like best, and use your knife to cut a hole in the middle of the gem.

You’ll have to eyeball the size a little bit (or ask somebody to measure your face for you). I started by cutting out a smaller circle, measuring it against my face and adjusting the circle until I was able to fit my face in it.

Yep, that's big enough.

Then I used an emery board to clean up some of the messy edges.

This part is optional.

Now the fun part! I decided to add more dimension (and fun) to my costume by painting the gems with glittery paint.

Keep painting until you have glittery gems!

Lastly, cut out little holes to loop your yarn through so that you can connect the three gems. Your Halloween costume is done!

This would be a fun costume to do with a bunch of friends as well -- for a full game of Bejeweled!