Sand In Your Eye have worked in Jamie Wardley’s home town of Bradford many times over the years, we have brought ice sculpture trails to the city centre, 3D pavement art, sand sculptures of all sizes (do you remember the colossal Charles Darwin sculpture outside the City Hall?) and sand sculpture workshops for families.
But it’s been a while since we’ve done any pumpkin carving there. In fact, the last time we made any pumpkins in the city centre was back in 2013 when Jamie carved a giant pumpkin that we think unintentionally looks like a certain Prime Minister, what do you think?
So, it was great when Bradford BID approached us about bringing some pumpkin carving magic to their Halloween celebrations with a mini pumpkin festival. In October, we often travel far and wide with our pumpkins and do live pumpkin carving and run family friendly workshops, where all ages can have a go and improve their pumpkin carving skills. It’s also nice when we can celebrate Halloween closer to home.
As Halloween usually falls on October half term, families are always looking for things to do with the kids – and what better way to keep them entertained than to come down to the Broadway Shopping Centre in Bradford and take part in our pumpkin carving workshops? And that’s exactly what lots of people did on the Tuesday before Halloween 2019. Bradford BID kindly provided participants with pumpkins and they couldn’t hand them out fast enough! Jonny and Leanne at Bradford BID said afterwards how well-mannered and friendly the workshop participants were, and what fantastic pumpkins they had created.
©Bradford BID ©Bradford BID ©Bradford BID
We also created one of our carved pumpkin scenes inside the shopping centre, inspired by local football team, Bradford City AFC. The goalie was a giant 3D carved pumpkin, we painted some of the pumpkins in claret and amber, the home side’s colours and there were some enthusiastic pumpkin fans on the sidelines waving their matching scarves. At the end of the day, they were joined by the giant pumpkin from the live pumpkin carve.