How to: make a watermelon baby carriage

Yesterday I posted about the baby shower my aunt and I did for my cousin's new baby. It was such a fun shower. There's just nothing like a new baby! Sigh. They're so sweet.

We wanted to serve fruit at the shower, and I thought it would be fun to carve a watermelon out to look like a baby carriage. It turns out, other people have done it too! Who knew? I found some images on Pinterest, but thought I'd whip up a little tutorial so you can see the process in case you'll be hosting a shower of your own.

It wasn't hard...but it was definitely messy. The end result is worth it, though!

First you have to make sure the watermelon will stay flat, so find the part that you want to be the bottom of the carriage, and make a thin slice so the watermelon will rest on a flat section.

Then trace your pattern. I wanted a scalloped edge, so I used one side of a small cup to trace around for the scallops. (tip: use a light pencil - or make sure to trace just outside where you will cut so you won't see the lines on the finished carriage) Then do a rough cut of the section that will be removed and carefully pull a few pieces off of the watermelon.

I cut out the scallops by following the lines I drew, and then carefully tried to take watermelon out of the center using a melon baller. I made sure to get all the seeds out and put the balls in a separate bowl. But there was SO MUCH fruit, that I eventually just got out a big ice scream scoop and started taking larger pieces out.

When the melon was all hollow, I decided to try to clean off my pen lines. Oops! They would not come off...so I ended up cutting the scallops back further to get rid of my markings. Hopefully you read the tip above and won't make the same mistake!

This was the mess left in my kitchen! I used up one large serving bowl, and three cereal bowls just putting the extra watermelon somewhere. I put some of the melon balls I had made back into the carriage and added strawberries and blueberries. You could add any other fruit you wanted, too.

Once I got to the party I added the wheels. I simply took a slice of grapefruit (but you could use orange or something else too) and placed them on sucker sticks I had pushed into the watermelon. (you could use toothpicks, I just didn't have any on hand) Then I put a little blueberry at the end to cover up the stick.

Voila...a finished carriage!

If you make one, please share a picture. I'd love to see it!
What other fun ways have you come up with to serve food at a party?