Every October we drive out to Altes Land, the orchard region outside Hamburg, and come back with a car full of pumpkins. Different shapes, different sizes, whatever the farmers have. The decorations go up in the garden, the Halloween playlist goes on loud, the good candy gets stocked. At some point my husband and I sit down with knives and spoons and the annual question: what face this year?

That’s where it gets tiresome. I want something new. Not the same triangle eyes we did in 2019, not the crooked grin from last year. So I search. And search. Pinterest, carving blogs, “creative jack-o-lantern ideas.” Three hours later I’m still scrolling through the same fangs and swoopy eyebrows I’ve seen a hundred times. The internet is infinite and somehow I’ve reached the end of it.

The tools don’t help either. Photo-to-stencil apps want a picture to start from. If I had the face already, I wouldn’t be looking. Design tools want me to draw and cut and edit and drag parts around like I’m building a ransom note. I don’t want to design anything. I just want a face I haven’t carved before.

You can guess the rest. As usual, nothing fit, so I made something that did. Handdrawn parts, deliberately creepy, some cute, but not plastic-Halloween-store creepy or cute. Multiple gourd shapes because the pumpkins from Altes Land are never perfect spheres. Randomize or pick your own eyes, nose, mouth. Print with icepick holes already marked so you can trace without guessing. It even prints the stencil at the size of your actual pumpkin. Pretty neat.

Extremely niche. I don’t care. I’ll use it every year. And when it’s dark and the candles are lit and the little ones outside lose their minds over the display, that never gets old.