Jack O'Lantern Tower Porch Decoration

Supplies

Supplies needed for one tower:

3-4 foam craft pumpkins - 9" were used
Chalk
Exacto knife
Hot glue gun & glue sticks
Small decorative barrel style flower pot, bucket or crate -- 9" to match size of pumpkins
Small block of styrofoam
Straw/Hay/Packing filler (I recycled some from a gift basket)
2 small (quart sized) ziploc bags of sand or rocks
2 garden staples
4 battery powered pumpkin tealights
Fishing line or string
1 screw eye hook
Electric tape
Scissors
Acrylic paint (optional)
Paint brush (optional)

Step 1: Carving Jack O'Lanterns

Design four different jack o’lantern faces.

Sketch your jack o'lantern faces onto the pumpkins with chalk, this makes it easy to edit/adjust your drawing.

Foam pumpkins are fairly easy to carve with an exacto knife. Just gently push the knife in and out. Don’t try to saw or cut, that way is difficult and frustrating.

I have tried using an electric hot knife and it took just as long and caused fumes. I tried using a jack o’lantern carving kit that had a little battery powered saw and it still took just as long and made a mess of shredded foam everywhere. A gentle slow poke method with the exacto knife has worked best for me.

Just like when carving real pumpkins remember to carve the lid with a slight angle inward to keep it from falling in.

Cut the tops of all the pumpkins

Cut smaller holes on the bottoms of only three of the pumpkins.

Step 2: Making the Base

Push two garden staples through the bottom of the fourth pumpkin.

Hot glue the small block of styrofoam to the bottom of the decorative bucket.

Place the two ziploc bags of sand on either side the styrofoam.

Arrange the straw around the styrofoam.

Gently reach through the mouth of the bottom pumpkin to push the garden staples into the styrofoam.

Step 3: Stacking & Gluing Jack O'Lanterns

Remove all the lids and keep only the one for the top jack o’lantern of the tower.

Balance the jack o’lanterns atop each other one at a time lining up the bottom holes with the top holes.

Hot glue each one in place.

Step 4: Stringing Tealights Inside the Jack O'Lantern Tower

Screw the eye hook into the center of the underneath of the top lid and hot glue it into place to keep it from slipping out of the foam.

Use electrical tape to secure two fishing lines onto each side of the tea lights creating a ladder with the lights spaced out so they will hang close to the bottom of each jack o'lantern.

Secure the line to the eye hook.

Turn on the lights and lower them down through the holes.

Step 5: Optional Painting

Painting is optional.

The pumpkins I bought had a darker orange autumnal finish so I gently sanded the surface and dry brushed orange acrylic paint to make it a brighter jack o’lantern.

For a scarier jack o’lantern for another tower I painted the inside, the eyes, nose, and mouth black. Then gently streaked black paint over the outside with it streaking down from the eyes, nose and mouth and rubbed most of it off with a paper towel to make it look old and worn.