No holiday is more synonymous with candy than that of Halloween. Candy corn, miniature snickers, caramel apple lollies, and of course my personal favorite, the Mellowcreme pumpkins.

Sure they were delicious, but my obsession went far deeper than just eating them. As I saw each bag as a new chance to create something magical. I started lite, borrowing a sewing needle from my mother and a spool of waxed dental floss. I was able to string enough pumpkins together to create a garland that perfectly accentuated my bedroom door. Sadly not knowing about resin casting at such a young age, said set piece’s life was limited to the first hot day when my wondrous Mellowcreme creation would begin to melt. Only then would I give in and gobble them whole.

Of course my love affair did not end there, as the possibilities in my mind were truly endless. My best friend was totally on board with me and we could spend hours plotting new custom crafts to incorporate our freshly bought bags of pumpkins. Perhaps my favorite of all was turning each pumpkin into its own tiny little jack-o-lantern with the help of a black Sharpie. I would draw endless designs filling my parent’s mantles with them.

Leave it to my friend to up the game by suggesting maybe we could very carefully carve out the middles leaving enough room to fit a GI Joe’s head inside. What sort of black magic madness had he stumbled upon? This was genius and blew away every project idea I had ever had and I knew for the next several weeks we would be slowly building our epic pumpkin army. For days after school the two of us would begin sketching new designs for custom jack-o-lantern heads we thought would fit our Joes the best. We would spend hours slaving away over the details. While, at first, our parents relished in the quiet these marathon sessions provided, they did begin to worry we may have totally snapped. And looking back, maybe we had. But we were not to be deterred. Eventually, with our sketchbooks filled with new designs, we set to the task of building our new army.