# Cheap pumpkins in the tree



## sanityassassin (Mar 15, 2008)

I have been wanting to hang carved pumpkins from a tree in the front yard with flicker LEDs in them for a while. I originally wanted to use small funkins, but even with a coupon they are still very expensive. I found some cheap styrofoam pumpkins at the dollar store that are fairly small and they said thay were carveable. I picked up a few to use for testing to see how well they would work.








The walls are pretty think and the pumpkins fairly small so carving with a dremel is somewhat difficult. The first one doesn't look that great, but it might be acceptable when viewed from a distance.








I poked a hole in the back and stuck a flicker LED that I had lying around to see how it looked lit up. One issue is that the paint on the outside is very thin and the whole thing glows. I planned on painting them a bit anyway since they are fairly bright orange and need to be toned down a bit. In the .gif below you can just barely see the glow I'm talking about, it's much more noticeable in person.








I ordered some LEDs and will be wiring them up to 12v to run them and will probably go pick up some more of the pumpkins to fill up the tree with them. I will post more as the LEDs come in and I start carving and wiring them up.


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## Hairazor (Mar 13, 2012)

Can't wait to see the tree lit up. Sounds like a cool project


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## elputas69 (Oct 27, 2014)

Those look really cool. I'm going to have to check the dollar store here. 
I like the black cat photobomb in the first photo too. On point.
Cheers


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

That's going to look wonderful! The flickering effect is perfect.


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## bobzilla (Nov 13, 2008)

Really cool looking!
Nice work


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## sanityassassin (Mar 15, 2008)

elputas69 said:


> Those look really cool. I'm going to have to check the dollar store here.
> I like the black cat photobomb in the first photo too. On point.
> Cheers


That's either Spooky or BatBat, it's hard to tell in the photo.


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## Copchick (Apr 10, 2012)

The effect looks great. With a little tweaking they're gonna look great hanging in a tree. I'd like to that picture or video. How many are you going to make for the tree?


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## sanityassassin (Mar 15, 2008)

Copchick said:


> The effect looks great. With a little tweaking they're gonna look great hanging in a tree. I'd like to that picture or video. How many are you going to make for the tree?


I was thinking around 10-12 of them, but I need to make sure the dollar store still has some of the pumpkins left. The only thing I have yet to purchase is the speaker wire that run from my 12v power supply to the pumpkins.


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## Bone Dancer (Oct 7, 2005)

They are going to look great, nice job.


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## deadSusan (Jun 26, 2013)

Very nice!


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## sanityassassin (Mar 15, 2008)

I purchased flickering LEDs and resistors from lighthouseleds.com and they arrived the other day. I soldered the resistor up so that I can use a 12v power supply to run all of the pumpkins. 








I used some CAT5 cable I had lying around to wire up my test pumpkin and hung it in the tree last night and it didn't look too bad.








Just 7 more to go.


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## Bone Dancer (Oct 7, 2005)

Seems bright enough


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## cheeky_ev (Sep 27, 2015)

I'm sure in the tree it will have an overall awesome effect.


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## sanityassassin (Mar 15, 2008)

I finished 8 pumpkins to put in the tree and wired everything up to a 12v power supply. The photo below doesn't do it justice, I will try to get a better photo tomorrow.








The whole project cost me around $12, and for that price I couldn't be happier.


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## halloween71 (Aug 9, 2007)

Love them!!!


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

I love this look! It's festive in a spooky way.


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