From the Nuggets to Knives the dog, here are Denver-themed pumpkin patterns

It's the most wonderful time of the year, that season when we bring home gourds and slice them into art. We're delighted to bring you yet another collection of hyper-local designs for your stoop. Some are hard and some are inane, but all are doable -- if you have the patience and a steady hand.

First, let's review how to use these templates:

Start with a pumpkin. I like to pick one with a flat-ish face on one side that might be a good canvas. You may want to choose the shape of your pumpkin -- be it tall or squat -- based on the design you choose.

Next, hollow out your pumpkin by cutting a hole in the bottom and use a big spoon, an ice cream scoop or your hands to shovel out the guts. (Last year, I learned from jack-o-lantern master Barry Brown that the bottom is actually better for your hole, since it allows you to just place the pumpkin over a candle. You can poke a little chimney hole in the top to release heat and smoke.)

For more intricate designs, you may want to shave off a bunch of pumpkin meat from the inside of the face you plan to carve. It'll be much easier to saw out fine details if you're not poking through an inch of flesh.

Now, print out a design and tape it onto the pumpkin. You can find high-res versions of these images here -- the link will work until Nov. 10.

Use a pen or a poker from a pumpkin carving kit to punch through the paper and leave a trail of dots on your pumpkin. As you go, make sure you can parse out the outlines of each shape, so you can use them when you carve.

(If you're a more confident artist, you may opt to just copy the design onto the pumpkin with a permanent marker.)

The black areas in these templates are regions that should be removed; if it's helpful, you can scratch out little "Xes" in these areas as you block out your lines so you know what you're looking at later.

Once you're done with the lines, it's time to get carving. We recommend the little saws you get in seasonal carving kits; their serrated edges slice through pumpkin like butter, and their thin profiles are ideal for details. Try using a sawing motion to cut through the gourd, and avoid dragging the saw through the flesh with too much force.

It's a good idea to begin with the smallest, most intricate pieces to remove, especially those inside other shapes. The windows of the school buildings below, for example, would be good first cuts. As you work, you can use your phone's flashlight to shine inside and see how things look.

You might consider storing your pumpkin inside to keep it fresh and safe from squirrels. If you put it out on a plate, rather than a concrete sidewalk, it may also last longer as concrete tends to wick away the gourd's moisture.

Mayor Mike Johnston's belt buckle:

The city's chief executive has developed a reputation for wearing a belt buckle with the city's flag on it. You can cut it out of a pumpkin just like this. Or, if you're feeling adventurous, you might carve this out of a strip of pumpkin, then put it on another pumpkin so it really looks like a belt. Or maybe this could be part of a snowman of pumpkins to really evoke the mayor's vibe; maybe you carve cowboy boots into the bottom one and a perfectly feathered hairdo in the top?

The national champs!

Here's a Denver skyline that celebrates the Nuggets' stellar win last season. Don't look now, but basketball season begins anew this week!

The Broncos' smoldering season:

OK, Denver football fans might just want to support their team, no matter how badly things are going. Here's a nice little design for you:

But, if you want to truly capture this season's vibe, we suggest setting things up a little differently. Perhaps you can elevate your Broncos jack-o-lantern above your candle, then let the flames slowly engulf it. It's a metaphor!

Sweet, sweet Knives:

Dear readers, this year we met a charismatic pooch whose life was saved by her owner's budding vintage furniture business. We loved meeting Knives, and we thought she deserved the pumpkin treatment.

Jazz it up with El Chapultepec:

LoDo's storied jazz joint closed in 2020, but there is now an effort to bring it back from the dead. We recently got to go see some live music there, and met people who made decades of memories inside. In their honor, we present you with this moderate-difficulty design of their famous sign.

The ghoooostly Ross-Cherry Creek branch library:

Now we're getting into some trickier designs. This is a reimagining of Denver Public Library's funky building in Cherry Creek, which has been closed since last year. Denverite readers have been sending us emails, asking when it will ever reopen. We don't have a date yet, though DPL says it should return to readers by the year's end. In the meantime, we thought it might be appropriate to imagine it as a haunted house; perhaps it was a ghost that closed it after all???

Expert mode: Denver's iconic high schools!

These are for the fearless among you, those willing to spend hours laboring over an orange orb. The four cardinal direction schools, North, South, East and West High Schools, date back to an era when Denverites really wanted to demonstrate that the city was on par with others on the nations' coasts. The idea for four grand schools came in part from Mayor Robert Speer, who also spurred the City Beautiful era that resulted in Civic Center Park.

Clockwise from top-left: South, North, West and East High Schools.

Again, you can find individual files of these images here. Note that the tops of these building shapes touch the rim of the shapes around them, in an attempt to give your piece more structural stability.