How To Turn a Pumpkin into a Wine Dispenser

Halloween is big in my neck of the woods. There are more than a half-dozen pick-your-own pumpkin places within 30 minutes of my house, plus two decently famous haunted houses, several ghost tours, and a few corn mazes.

And while those activities — and the other more traditional Halloween festivities of trick-or-treating and parties — may look different or be canceled altogether this year, there is still one fun project I can do safely from my home: Turn a pumpkin into a wine dispenser.

I first tried this last year, when guests could visit freely and close gatherings were still a thing. It went over super well, and I fully plan on doing it again this year (albeit just for me and my husband). Here’s how I did it.

• Box of wine (red, preferably)
• Medium- to large-sized pumpkin
• Marker
• Serrated knife
• Spoon or a ladle (optional)
• Round cookie cutter and mallet (optional)
• Spray paint or acrylic craft paint
• Stick-on letters (optional)

1. Get the wine ready: Open the cardboard box and remove the wine bag. Use this opportunity to hold the bag in your hands and double check to make sure the bag will fit inside your pumpkin.
2. Draw a line around the top of your pumpkin: Use a marker to draw a circle around the stem of the pumpkin. Make this circle as big as possible to make sure the bag of wine will fit through it. I like to add a small notch to the circle so that the lid always lines up correctly.
3. Cut along that line: Follow the line with a serrated knife. Make your cuts at an angle, so that the lid doesn’t fall into the pumpkin.
4. Empty the pumpkin: Use your hands, a spoon, a soup ladle (whatever you have!) to scoop out all the guts from the inside of the pumpkin. Don’t forget to get the gunk off the lid to the pumpkin, too. Save the seeds to roast them later.
5. Cut a hole for the wine’s spout: Figure out which part of the pumpkin you want to use as the front of the dispenser and decide where you think the spout will sit. (This project is very forgiving and you can manipulate the bag to get the spout just right, so don’t worry too much about that.) We used a round cookie cutter and a mallet to hammer out the hole, but you can also use a knife (just draw out your circle before you start cutting).
6. Paint the pumpkin: Put the lid on the pumpkin and paint it. I used spray paint but we didn’t have access to the outside during our professional shoot so we used acrylic craft paint. You can paint the stem or leave it alone. Let the pumpkin dry.
7. Add a message: Who doesn’t love a cheeky saying? Think Halloween-y (“Hallo-wine,” or “Here for the Boos”) or make it more fall-centric and you can steal this idea for Thanksgiving. Or skip this step entirely. It’s up to you!
8. Add the wine: Open the pumpkin and add the bag of wine, spout-first. Then, pull the spout through the hole in the bottom and get it into position.
9. Put it on display: Sit your pumpkin on a little pedestal (a small tree stump or a cake stand, for example). This way, it’s easier to get your cup under the spout.

• I used these stick-on letters from Meri Meri because they were glittery. And who doesn’t love glitter?

Styling: Brigitt Earley