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Thursday, November 21, 2013

Disco Pumpkin


I lack the photography skills to adequately show just how awesome this pumpkin is, so you’ll just have to do your part and use your imagination or better yet make your own because it’s super easy.  What makes this pumpkin extra special is it’s illuminated with a color changing LED light. Here are a couple of stills of that color changing awesomeness.


I bought the Pumpkin Masters Star Studded Pumpkins kit years ago. According to this website it was released in 2004, which sounds about right.  It came with this handy dandy little tool, but I’m sure a drill would work just as well, probably better. 

 

In this video they use a drill and real pumpkins, and show some neat designs.





To make a pumpkin like mine you will need a fake pumpkin, white paint and other assorted paints, clear marbles, drill or other tool of choice to make holes, color changing LED light and again your tool of choice for carving out the bottom of the pumpkin. 
 

Start by carving an opening in the bottom of your pumpkin. My light isn’t very thick, so by making the opening more of an oval shape, I can insert it sideways and then once it’s lying flat it doesn’t fall out. I like to move things around.  Making a hole wide enough that you can set your pumpkin over your light source works too.   
 
Paint the inside of the pumpkin white.  I like spray paint for this. I used a pumpkin from Michael’s without any problems, but spray paint can eat into foam, so another brand might react differently.  Just something to keep in mind.  The reason for this step is so your light colors stay true and don’t reflect the orange hue of the pumpkin.  It makes a big difference, I speak as one who had to pop all the marbles out and paint a pumpkin full of holes after the fact.

After the inside is painted, then paint the outside however you like.

Mark where you want your holes.  Then poke, scrape, twist, drill, use the force or whatever your method of choice is to make holes.  Just don’t make them too big, you want the marbles to fit snug.

After you’ve made a hole you can give the marble a little twist to wedge it in. I think it looks best when the marbles are sticking halfway out, they look really cool when they light up. I also like the look of using different sized marbles.

That’s it, light it up!

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