Make Awesome No-Carve Star Wars Pumpkins – Using a Drill!

This project was so fun for our entire family.  And while ours won’t last all the way until Halloween (we made them early to share with you all) we have some tips to offer for making your pumpkins look awesome and for keeping them fresh as long as possible.

How to Make Awesome Star Wars Pumpkins

The middle two boys and I found some beautiful pumpkins at Costco for only $6.99 each, so we bought three!  It wasn’t quite the pumpkin patch experience, but we’ll be doing that also later in October.  Pumpkins this nice needed an awesome design!  I have seen several photos on Pinterest of beautiful pumpkin lanterns created using a drill, so we decided to give it a try, except with a Star Wars twist.

How to Make AWESOME Star Wars Pumpkins

The boys decided that they turned out AWESOME!

How to Make Awesome Star Wars Pumpkins

Here’s how we made them! (Scroll down for close up photos of each design.)

Step 1:  Cut off the top of the pumpkin and scrape out all the innards.  

Step 2:  Find an image to print of the character you want to make.  We used our all-in-one printer to copy and re-size our images so that they fit the pumpkins we chose.  The images that we used are not mine to give away in this post, but if you do a quick google image search you should find plenty of options!

Star Wars Pumpkins

Step 3:  Transfer the outline of the image onto the pumpkin using something sharp, like a nail, push pin, or compass.  Pencil won’t show up on a pumpkin and marker is a little too permanent if you make a mistake.  We used the sharp tip of a compass to make small dots where we wanted to drill.  We started with the outline and then went ahead and drilled those holes.

Star Wars Pumpkins

Drilling on the pumpkin is super easy.  Our 12 and 8 year olds were able to take turns with the drilling.  Three pumpkins was a LOT of drilling, so Dad and I did a lot of it too!

Star Wars Pumpkins

Step 4:  Place the paper image back onto your pumpkin.  Poke your compass (or pin or nail) through the paper to mark the eyes, nose, and other details of the face.  It’s a little tricky, especially if your image is complicated, to decide which details to include with the drill.  We marked a little and drilled a little and then marked some more until the faces looked the way we wanted them to.

TIPS:

  • Make sure to do plenty of scraping on the inside, especially if your pumpkin is large.  Halfway through Darth Vader, I realized that the holes weren’t going all the way through!  Bummer!  We scraped out quite a bit more of the pumpkin flesh and then re-drilled the holes.
  • Push a bamboo skewer through each hole to clean out any “gunk” so that the light can shine through.
  • Cut a hole in the back of the pumpkin.  Otherwise the candles will not be able to get enough oxygen and the flame will go out right quickly.

Star Wars Pumpkins

  • To keep your pumpkin fresh longer, rub a thin layer of vaseline over the cut areas (like the hole that you cut in the back).  This will help keep the edges from drying and curling.
  • Use more than one candle – we used up to 4 votive candles to get the best glow.  I should have bought larger candles, though, because those burn down SO fast.

Detail Photos:

Yoda

How to Make Awesome Star Wars Pumpkins

How to Make Awesome Star Wars Pumpkins

R2D2

How to Make Awesome Star Wars Pumpkins

How to Make Awesome Star Wars Pumpkins

Darth Vader

How to Make Awesome Star Wars Pumpkins

How to Make Awesome Star Wars Pumpkins

Which one will YOU make??

How to Make Awesome Star Wars Pumpkins - With tips for getting the design onto the pumpkin!

3 Comments

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  1. JennaRae Oct 18, 2015

    My 10yr old & I love your pumpkins! He will be using your idea to decorate his this Halloween. One quick question: what size(s) of drill bit(s) did you use?

    Reply
  2. Linda Stradley Oct 25, 2015

    How about the little battery operated votives?

    Reply
    1. Sarah Oct 25, 2015

      That's a great idea! The battery powered lights that we have are a little dim, but we bought them at Dollar Tree so that might be part of the problem. I would definitely try it! Those little lights are so simple and no need to worry about wind or candles burning down.

      Reply
  3. Alina jones Oct 16, 2018

    We always go basic with our pumpkin carving. We need to try one of these instead.

    Reply

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