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Step 1
Purchase a nice large pumpkin from any grocery store or farmer's market.
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Step 2
Lay a few sheets of used newspaper on the table and place the pumpkin on it.
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Step 3
Take a sharp knife and very carefully make cuts around the stem at the top part of the pumpkin. Cut a hole big enough for you to reach your hand in and clean out the pumpkin. Be sure to angle your cuts a little so that you will be able to replace the cut off top after you clean out the inside of the pumpkin.
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Step 4
Use a serving spoon and scoop out as many seeds and stringy insides from the pumpkin as possible. If strings are still attached to the wall of the pumpkin and are hard to remove, use a grapefruit spoon, which has sharp edges, to scrape the sides.
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Step 5
Put the seeds in a separate bowl if you plan to use them for other purposes or discard the seeds if you don't need them.
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Step 6
Check again to ensure that all the strings are cleaned out well. Stringy residues will smoke and burn when you put a lighted candle in your carved pumpkin.
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Step 7
Set the pumpkin aside and wrap up the mess from the cleaning process with the newspaper and discard in a garbage container. Your pumpkin is ready to be transformed into a jack-o'-lantern!
