BIG NEWS! ~ A Flo Pumpkin Carving for Progressive Insurance! PLUS Video!

(I will apologize in advance for this unusually long post….)

So, I’ve been keeping a secret for the past few weeks! And man oh man, this has been a hard one to keep. So a little over a month ago I got an email asking if I’d be willing to come out to Boston, MA to carve a Flo pumpkin for Progressive Insurance! – There is a campaign out right now encouraging people to dress like Flo for Halloween, and they were interested in a “Flo Pumpkin.” About 2 weeks and a dozen emails later, I found myself waking up at 3:50 in the morning getting ready for my first flight EVER! Destinaton: Boston, MA!  (They were even nice enough to fly my husband out with me and put us in a wonderful hotel for a couple of nights! Awesome! Just awesome!)

Once I was finally sitting on the first flight all I could think to myself was, “Holy cow! What did I just get myself into? Is this for real?…..Am I really flying on a plane to Boston to carve a FLO PUMPKIN for PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE????” I mean, really…never in my wildest dreams could I have ever have predicted my life at that moment.  Nonetheless, as soon as we were in the air, there was no turning back! It was time to officially soak in the moment and live it up!

My first flight EVER!

I ended up not being as nervous as I thought I would be while flying. Having said that, I was a NERVOUS WRECK about the thought that my sculpting tools wouldn’t make it to my destination. We had a layover in Denver,CO so I was crossing my fingers that my tools would find their way on to our new plane. I knew that if I didn’t have my tools, then quite simply, I couldn’t produce a sculpted pumpkin.

At 4:30 EST we finally reached our destination!  Long story short, to my complete relief my tools made it! YAY!  And although it took about 20 minutes to finally get a cab, we finally arrived at our hotel at about 6:30pm!

The Colonnade, Boston!

An amazing, and HUMONGOUS fountain next to our hotel.

After grabbing a bite to eat and relaxing in our room, the nerves slightly started to sink in. My imagination started wandering with what to expect for the next day. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night….Remember when you were a kid trying to sleep even though you were going to Disneyland the next day?? Yeah….it was kind of like that! 😉

Phoebe from their film crew met us at the hotel at 8:45am. We took a stroll on over to their studio (since it was right across the street), and got to work right away. They had an amazing set prepped that was made to look as if I was in my own workshop right at home:

On set, waiting for filming to begin.

And let me preface the picture below by saying that this picture was showing how my face was a lot of the time when I was getting used to the bright, BRIGHT, (and did I mention, BRIGHT?) lights in my face the whole time! Sheesh! I felt like I needed sunglasses! lol. Luckily those lights weren’t hot.

Some time into filming:

One of the several cameras that was filming at ALL times!

One of my favorite shots

Finally, when filming was wrapped, the crew took my pumpkin to be photographed in another room. They invited us to stay and eat dinner, but they had already done so much for us during the day (including buy lunch) that we didn’t want to impose. My husband and I thanked everyone for everything and said our goodbyes. It took weeks for the editing – after all, I assume it was no easy task editing down hours of footage into a 45 second clip! (Speaking of which, the final video is posted below. Please note, although I am in it, I did NOT make this video. This is the official Progressive, Flo 3D Pumpkin video.) Having said that, Enjoy!

I’m so happy with how the clip came out – they did a fantastic job on the editing!

It was such an AMAZING experience that I will never forget! I feel so blessed to be a part of it! And if I may add, many thanks to everyone who has supported me and encouraged me in all of my artistic ventures. I truly appreciate you all!

And a special thanks to everyone at Arnold Worldwide/Progressive for inviting me out to take part in this project! I am so honored!

This experience was just a testament to me that if you just keep doing what you love, simply because you enjoy it, great opportunities will come out of it! And if you are prepared, you can take those great opportunities and turn them into something amazing!

Happy Carving everyone!