Fruit Salad

This past Saturday my husband and I hosted our first party in our new home...and our first party as a married couple (if you don't count our wedding). While preparting for the party Will had the great idea that I make a fruit salad and use the shell of the watermelon as the bowl. Well, the idea progressed and with the help of a couple friends I ultimately decided to make the watermelon into a basket.
I wasn't quite sure how I was going to do this, but I had a general plan that evolved as I went. Will wanted all of the melons in the fruit salad to be balled using a melon baller. I tried out our melon baller a couple days in advance and decided that was going to be too much work and that simply cutting up the fruit would be much easier and more efficient.
So, here's the process I used to make this watermelon basket. I started out by cutting out two pieces thus making the "handle" of the basket and giving the guidelines for where I would make the jagged edges.

Making the horizontal cuts was much harder that I thought it would be and they didn't exactly give me the right angle I was aiming for. I started out with small pieces then cut it down bit by bit to where I wanted it to ultimately be. I figured it would be easier to cut more out if necessary, but putting pieces of the watermelon back would be basically impossible.

Unfortunately, during this process of cutting the opening down to where I wanted it I accidentally cut one end of the handle :(

Oh - and I cut out the watermelon in the handle using a steak knife. Any smaller knife would do. I just needed a small blade for the more detailed work. As you can see my horizontal cuts aren't exactly perfect, but that's ok.

Before fixing the handle I decided to go ahead and make the jagged edges and hollow out the melon. I figured I could use the flexibility of the handle at this point to my advantage.

After cutting out the edge I attempted to cut out the center using a couple different knives, but none of them were working, so I resorted to the melon baller. It actually was pretty easy to hollow out the melon using the melon baller, but it was a little tedious. Since I was doing this only a couple hours before the party started I had several other things that needed to be done, and my husband asked if there was anything he could help with, so I put him to work hollowing out the watermelon. I tried to take a picture, but he left the room every time I lifted the camera to take a pic. So, you just have to trust me on this one :)

Once the watermelon was hallowed I filled it with fruit. 

After filling the melon with fruit I finally fixed the handle using toothpicks.

Everyone loved the fruit salad! I originally didn't cut up all of the fruit I had thinking I had bought too much. I refilled the watermelon with what I had cut up and everything was eaten.

fruit salad in watermelon basket = success!!

If you have any suggestions for something you'd like me to try let me know - I'm feeling fairly confident after finishing this lovely fruit salad :)