Yet again another Halloween/Fall event! I love decorating my room but I love making those decorations even more! I think I assumed the pumpkins were going to be real mini-pumpkins but I was glad they were small plastic ones that we could store and reuse again later. I decided on painting a vampire pumpkin! I painted the whole pumpkin orange, added the jack-o-lantern eyes, and to finish it off, a little fake blood dripping down its smile. It came out so cute and it was a great event to get me into the Halloween mood!

Usually I can say that I can paint pretty decently for someone that does not do it that often. As long as I have some inspiration, I can usually make something that is at least pleasing to the eye. But this day was not one of those days. The pumpkin that I painted did not come out as planned so I ended up covering the whole thing in dark red. I was happy to see that other people were successful in making their pumpkins look good. But, on the bright side I learned that in the past women used to think that they would see their husbands if they looked into a mirror on Halloween. Now, whenever Halloween comes around again, I’ll be looking in mirrors ;).

I love dressing up and celebrating for Halloween, but for obvious reasons this year’s Halloween plans were very different. I am glad I got to be at least somewhat festive this year at the pumpkin painting event. I really liked learning about Halloween facts and was surprised about some of the historical facts regarding Halloween. For my pumpkin, I opted for a more aesthetic design because I knew I wanted to keep my pumpkin around even past Halloween. I really like that these Rose events have taken me back to arts and crafts which is something I used to do a lot as a child but have never had the chance to do more as an adult. I really liked my fall leaf sun-catcher and hope to bring that and my pumpkin around each year for my fall dorm room decor.  My room is mainly neutral colors so I decided to keep the pumpkin white and add some black accents. I think it came out nice and matches my room well. It has a good balance of Halloween spook and general fall vibes!

I haven’t really celebrated Halloween in the past few years that I have been in college, so this was a nice activity to make me feel festive. It was also a new experience for me because I have never decorated a pumpkin before. I have always seen pictures of people craving and decorating pumpkins and I have always wanted to do the same. I’ve been really into cow print so I decided to make a pumpkin with black and white cow print and I liked the way it came out. I also enjoyed the trivia because I never really thought that Americans spend that much money on candy every Halloween.

I love all holidays, including Halloween. It was so fun to paint a pumpkin while learning all sorts of trivia about Halloween traditions and where certain Halloween cultural aspects have come from. I learned about the roots of trick-or-treating and how many traditions center around women seeing signs about their future husband. Some traditions were born in Ireland, which was neat to learn. I enjoyed gained a better understanding of the roots of these fun aspects of Halloween while creating a beautiful decoration and allowing my creative juices to flow. This event did a wonderful job incorporating both learning and creativity.

It was a nice break from school to paint pumpkins for Halloween and play trivia. I liked the creative freedom to decorate our pumpkins as we wanted to. The trivia questions were also really interesting. It was funny that a lot of old Halloween superstitions had ties to women finding their potential partners. For example, women looked in mirrors while walking downstairs at midnight on Halloween to see their boyfriends. I was also shocked to hear that Americans spend approximately $2.6 billion a year on Halloween candy!

Happy Halloween!  Pumpkin painting is a fun fall activity that I missed out on during my childhood.  It was so much fun painting a pumpkin for the first time while learning more about Halloween.  Being able to relax and add color to my white plastic pumpkin while also adding new facts about Halloween was a perfect way to spend the holiday.  I never knew that Halloween was such a romantic holiday in the past.  It encouraged me to do some more research and learn more about the romantic Halloween customs.  It was interesting to see how big of a role foods like apples and walnuts played in these customs.  It is sort of like how we emphasize candy and apples when we celebrate Halloween, minus all of the romantic implications the food had back then.  I was surprised by many of the trivia facts that was a part of this event and had a great time learning so much more about this holiday that I have been celebrating for a long time without really knowing why.

It’s Halloween! I picked up my paintable pumpkin in my locker and attended the event. I really love painting so this event was super great. The pumpkin is so cute. Even better, was that we were given trivia while we painted to keep things exciting. I knew none of the answers, but it was fun hearing people’s guesses and learning more facts that I had never heard before, or even thought about! Because of Covid, it has been hard to get into the exciting Halloween spirit. I usually give out candy in my dorm or try to hang out with a lot of friends, but this year just was not feasible. I am glad I could make my room a little more festive, and participate in this Halloween tradition with my peers.

I really enjoyed this explore program. I love painting and it was a great way to socialize during these times with Covid. I also learned a lot about the history of halloween I learned what candy corn was originally called, how many pounds of candy corn that are produced every year, why women looked in mirror while walking downstairs on halloween, and that medieval traditions inspired trick or treating. I also didn’t know what mischief night was until this activity. I would love to participate in another trivia night!

Since this Halloween is so different and I couldn’t do many things that day, it was so relieving to have a fun activity to participate in on the day of Halloween. I attended pumpkin painting and trivia hosted by my GRF Sam from Mennen Hall. I was super excited for this activity since I love painting, and I didn’t have many chances during the semester to with such a busy schedule. I spent a long time deciding what to paint on my white pumpkin and got inspired by some pictures off pinterest. I knew I wanted to keep the white of the pumpkin and paint some designs to contrast it. I decided to paint orange flowers and black leaves, mixing multiple shades of orange to paint the flowers. I also created a ghost-like gradient with a little bit of white on the black leaves, and I really love how the pumpkin turned out. I also learned a lot of surprising facts about Halloween I hadn’t known before, like the heaviest pumpkin being heavier than 2000 pounds. I actually had another Halloween trivia event later that day where I used what I learned during this trivia.

painted some orange colored flowers with black stems and leaves on my white pumpkin to highlight halloween colors

This collaborative event will probably go down as one of my favorite events this semester. Doing the “Explore! Series” challenges my dormant artistic side, but the end result also makes me proud of my work! Painting the pumpkin was definitely a challenge especially with the texture and the hilly surface of the pumpkin. In the end, I was able to make a really cute drawing of a donut on it. Apart from that, the trivia aspect of it was very fun, and I learned new facts about Halloween that I never really thought about. In the end, a lot of discussion was done and there was even a mini-debate about coffee v. tea. (Tea obviously being superior!)

Happy Halloween everyone! I just finished painting a mini pumpkin while playing a trivia game with Rose Scholars. It was a nice community activity to partake in while still staying safe. Some interesting trivia GRF Sam asked us had to do with traditions done during Halloween… many having to do with finding a future partner! I never really thought of Halloween as a romantic Holiday, yet women used to string damp clothes, look in mirrors while going down stairs, and throw apple peels behind them all in hopes of catching a glimpse of their future husband. We also learned Americans spend billions of dollars on candy every year. I really enjoyed just getting to relax and paint on a beautiful fall day after having a prelim this week. Once again happy Halloween!