Easy halloween project: 8-bit gourds!

Gourds

A quick, low-tech halloween project: we hollowed out a couple of miniature decorative gourds. You can get these by the bagful at the grocery store, next to the mini-pumpkins. The one on the left had a kind of wrinkly base that adapted itself well to this shape, and the one on the right had more of a conical tip that we cut off to make a flat base.

Gourds like these have a hard shell, about 3 mm thick, that is rather hard to cut through. We used a loose drill bit (turned by hand) to make the initial cut. From there, a regular hobby knife (e.g., x-acto) works well. Once the soft flesh and seeds are scooped out, the hard shell can dry to make a semi-permanent display.

It’s unreasonably fun to walk around with one of these in each hand, reenacting the age-old chase drama. Especially when the little yellow dude chomps a big white dot. Now who’s chasing who?!?!


You can find more pumpkin projects in our Halloween Project Archive.

5 thoughts on “Easy halloween project: 8-bit gourds!

  1. I hate your horrible lethal subculture, creation of a pure and spontaneous EVIL power. You agents of Inversion!!!!
    René G. + Bud Spencer

  2. Thanks for posting all of this old Halloween stuff! I have ordered some LEDs from the EMS shop (which just shipped yesterday, thanks for the email about my order!) and some other goodies from DigiKey to attempt the light-sensing LED pumpkin over the weekend.

    How big were those gourds you used (dia, height, etc)? I’d like to try my hand at carving a few of these guys too.

    I just wish I had a house to show off all of the projects I’d like to try from your site… but alas, I live in an apartment complex with my front door a couple hundred feet from the sidewalk…

    -Ian

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