DIY Life

It's difficult these days to come up with unique Halloween jack-o-lantern decoration ideas. I mean, there are only so many ways to carve a pumpkin, right? After all, they've been carving pumpkins since before Ichabod Crane had his run-in with the headless horseman on that covered bridge, and that was at least a couple Halloweens ago.

My challenge was to come up with a jack-o-lantern idea that no one had tried yet. While I'm not sure that I accomplished that goal, I have come up with something which is at least...unusual. The amazing puking pumpkin that you are about to witness was actually quite easy to accomplish. In truth, it's more of a rabid pumpkin than it is a puking one, but I still like the way the whole thing worked out.



Continue reading to see how it's done.

Materials:

• One carving-sized pumpkin (I recommend about basketball size)
  
• Five or six glow sticks
  
• One aquarium air pump with hose
  
• Dish washing detergent or other liquid soap
  
• Water

Tools:

• Pumpkin carving tools including a marker, at least one knife with a rigid, sharp blade, and one large metal spoon.

Time:

• Allow yourself a couple hours
  

Steps:

1. Begin by hollowing out your pumpkin in the usual manner. Make a nice large top opening. When you are satisfied with the hollowing out process, poke a hole from the inside of the pumpkin outward to indicate where the lowest edge of the mouth opening will be. You want to make sure that you leave at least two inches of pumpkin side wall below the mouth. More is better. Once you have done that, you can draw and carve all the facial features.
2. Poke a hole in the center of the back side of your pumpkin, put the aquarium air hose through, and place it in the bottom of the pumpkin. You may need to weight the aerator to make it stay in place.
3. Mix your soap and water to a concentration about twice as soapy as you would use for washing dishes. Fill the bottom of your pumpkin with the soapy water mixture to within a half inch of the mouth opening.
   
4. Plug in your aquarium pump, put your glow sticks inside and start the show! Once the pumpkin cavity fills with suds the increasing volume will force the foam barf out of your pumpkin's mouth! Add more soapy water as needed.
   

Additional Tips:

Using a liquid such as cranberry juice or a powered drink mix will add a bit of color and sliminess to your foam. You can also add bits of chopped packing peanuts to give that pumpkin barf some character. Putting aluminum foil on the inside of your pumpkin will help to reflect some of the light back through your jack-o-lantern's barf.