Professional pumpkin carver shares top tips including why you SHOULDN'T light a tealight inside

A professional pumpkin carver has shared her top tips for carving the perfect pumpkin this Halloween - and why you SHOULDN'T light a tealight inside it. Szimonetta Zombori, 30, works all year round as a professional fruit artist - but Halloween is her favourite time of the year. The mum-of-two carves intricate designs on pumpkins - including well-known faces such as Mona Lisa and Frankenstein - for up to £200 per design. Szimonetta from Bournemouth, Dorset, said you should never 'just wing it' when it comes to your design - and should map it out first to get the best result. The artist also warned against an easy mistake people make - putting a real lit tealight in your pumpkin. She explained people don't realise this can actually start to COOK the pumpkin so it goes off faster - and the best thing to do is to get a small LED tea light instead. Sisi, a mum-of-two, said: "For me, when coming up with a design I always look around me and see if I can find something for inspiration. “I always try to find challenging designs to try out for myself each year.” Szimonetta completed a stone sculpting course in 2014 after leaving school, but quickly discovered she had a passion for a more unusual medium – food. Although pumpkins are one of Szimonetta’s favourite canvases, she can create incredible art from nearly any food – including watermelons, cheese, broccoli and even an avocado. Her work has even attracted major clients such as Sainsbury’s and L’Oreal who get her to work on ad campaigns. Her partnership with Sainsbury’s two years ago saw her carve celebrity faces into pumpkins, including Ed Sheeran and David Bowie. She said: “It can be tiring when I have a big project to complete! "When I have lots of pumpkins to carve it’s a race against the clock to get them completed while they’re still fresh. “I can complete smaller pieces like mangoes or cheese blocks in under two hours but a watermelon or pumpkin can take more than three. “But I prefer working on bigger foods like pumpkins because there is more space to do more with it." Along with mapping out your carving plan and using an LED light, Sisi recommended people start to branch out - and don't just stick with traditional tools. She favours a linoleum cutter to allow you to scrape off layers without going all the way through the flesh into the hollow centre. She said: "That tool is best for intricate designs. "But if want to go for the traditional jack o lantern style, you will need a stainless steel, good …

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