If you haven’t already, it’s time to start carving pumpkins. If you’ve already carved one up, it’s time to get a new one because it’s probably not as good as a Zombie Pumpkin. Each stencil is hand drawn and stylized by Ryan, the one man show, to work perfectly with traditional cut-out carving techniques. You don’t need to be a master carver for these stencils to come out looking good. But I’ll stop gushing over how awesome they are and let you get to choosing. The site’s been recently updated for the 2006 season with a new design and new stencils. Some of the newest are Stubbs the Zombie (personal fav), Head Cheerleader, Gizmo (from the 80’s flick Gremlins), and in honor of Friday the 13th, Jason Voorhees.

Don’t forget that the stencils can be used for other things besides pumpkin carving. We used the Pumpkin King stencil to decorate our pumpkin cake, and there are stencils made just for watermelons.

One of Zombie Pumpkins’ freebie stencils (and one of the coolest ones, IMO) was created from imagery on a bottle of Haunted Hot Sauce. They cleverly combine flesh-eating zombies with spicy food products to create a zombie themed hot sauce. It is also worth mentioning that HHS has a great website that doesn’t just sell zombie hot sauce in little cedar coffins. They’ve got some great tips and tricks for decor and props. Our top picks are the 13 Top Tips for creating a Halloween atmosphere, and how to “board up” your windows (we’d love to see more pictures of this one).

Happy Friday the 13th!