Renee's pumpkin present

Renee and Richard decided to invite us for a dinner at their place, so I thought that bringing along a little seasonal gift would be a good gesture. So, I decided to try out my "waxed pumpkin flower pot" idea. My previous experiments showed that Vaseline did a great job at preserving the pumpkin flower pots, so I decided to try out the bee wax as an even heavier-duty preservative. I read up on the old-days canteen making with hot wax, so I had a general idea on what to do.

So, here we go, I got a good-size pumpkin, very carefully scrubbed (to avoid any deep cut where a mold could start to grow). I got about 5 oz of melted wax. I also decided to sprinkle some cinnamon on the walls of the pumpkin, to capture the "holiday scent" inside. As another olfactory-pleasing measure, I added a few drops of clove oil to the wax. So, let the fun begin....

Voila! A nicely coated pumpkin - almost to the edges! I could not coat the edges. The wax was cooling down too quickly, and swooshing hot wax too close to my hands was too scary, so I decided to try a paint brush to finish up the top part. Melting more hot wax took time that I did not budget in, but hey, it was too late to be coming up with any other presents. So, I worked as fast as I could.

I went over the edges several times, to make sure that all crevices and cuts were well-coated, to retard future molding and moisture loss for as long as possible.

After the wax hardened (just barely!), I could insert the flower pot.

I thinned the leaves of the flower a bit, so they would not look too bushy. The last touch was making a maple-leaf shapes note, drawing a smiling face on the pumpkin, and making a straw broom to bring home the message that the pumpkin was actually a face. The broom-making experience was a bit of a challenge at first, but became my favorite part quickly.

Unfortunately, we were starting to run late, so in a hurry I forgot to make a picture of the final product. I will see if I could get it from Renee later.