Blood sweat and tears went into the pumpkin. Minus the sweat and tears. Blood however, went in, not once, not twice, but 3 times. You see I wanted the light to come threw like you see above so a standard carving knife wasnt going to cut it... So I took a wood carving knife. Which is basically a ball point pin with a razor blade on the end. The first cut occurred when I reached to pick up my bottle of water and opened my thumb up. This produced the most blood and least pain. The second time I just dropped it and it pricked my leg, no big. The 3rd, hurt the most and was also the dumbest. I wanted to make sure a cut looked good so I leaned in close to examine when I felt a sharp pain in my chest, and by pain I mean razor blade. I would say it only made it about 1/8 of an inch in, but it hurt a lot. Was it worth it? I'll let my art speak to that question.