It's Halloween and the pumpkins are ready to carve! Have everyone in your family carve a pumpkin (or two), then follow our directions to assemble a spooky jack-o'-lantern totem pole.

What you'll need

• 6-8 pumpkins
• Diluted bleach
• Dowel (to the length of 6-8 pumpkins)
• Container
• Bricks
• Fairy lights or tea lights

Step 1
Carve your pumpkins! Depending on how tall you want your totem pole to be, you'll need six to eight finished jack-o'-lanterns. Our finished totem pole was about six feet tall. Coat the inside of your finished jack-o'-lanterns with diluted bleach. This will help to keep your totem pole in tip-top shape.

Step 2
Fill the container with something heavy to keep the dowel and the container stable. We put bricks in the bottom of the container and then poured a large bag of potting soil on top.

Step 3
Before inserting the dowel into the container, make sure it isn't too long. Lay your jack-o'-lanterns on the ground in the order you plan to stack them. Lay the dowel down alongside the jack-o'-lanterns to see if you need to cut it. The end of the dowel should stop in the centre of the very top pumpkin.

Step 4
More carving! Carve holes in the bottom of each pumpkin. Be sure the hole isn't too big. The dowel should fit snugly through the hole. Next, carve a fist-sized hole in the back of each pumpkin (you'll use this hole to insert the lights).

Step 5
Stack your jacks! Poke the dowel through each pumpkin. Keep the pumpkins centred on top of each other. Top off your totem pole with a pot of ivy for hair. Put some mini pumpkins around the base for decoration.

Step 6
Turn on the lights! To make our totem pole extra bright, we put one string of tiny white lights in each pumpkin. You can use one string of lights for every two pumpkins if you want. Alternatively you could use tea lights.

Contributed by Garden.com