Halloween side hustle brings mom a fortune for her decorating abilities
A Texas woman's unique hobby of decorating the front porches of homes with festive fall pumpkins has taken off and her work is in great demand. Here's how she does it.
A Texas woman with a passion for design has turned her hobby into a booming side business.
Heather Torres is a 41-year-old stay-at-home mom from Dallas, Texas. Her side hustle is decorating the front porches of homes for the fall holidays. (See the video at the top of this article.)
Torres said she started decorating front porches with pumpkins and Halloween decorations in 2020 after some neighbors complimented her own home’s decor and asked her to do the same for their porches, SWNS reported.
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"When we started, I was doing two or three porches a day. Yesterday I did 89 porches alone," she told the outlet.
She starts prepping for the season and taking orders in July — sometimes getting inspiration from things around her.
Torres visited the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden years ago and said it always inspired her to do pumpkin displays at home.
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"They would have a little pumpkin village you could walk through and see all the varieties of pumpkins," she said.
Torres said it inspired her. She purchased 45 pumpkins for her home’s front yard, all of various sizes and shapes.
In 2013, Torres did her first-ever porch display.
She said her displays were spread out in the yard at first before she confined it to just the front porch area.
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"I started creating designs and using different varieties of pumpkins," she said.
"That is when my friends and neighbors asked if I could do it for them."
Today, Torres told Fox News Digital she sources her pumpkins from all over Texas, making sure to support local farmers.
Clients spend anywhere from $325 to $1,350 to have their porch decorated for the fall season.
"The way I create displays for my clients is I showcase the beautiful specialty pumpkins in the front and those are the pumpkins that have all the colors: pink porcelain doll pumpkins, gray jaradelle pumpkins, red Cinderella pumpkins, and white Cinderella pumpkins," she told Fox News Digital.
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"We also consider the best placement of the pumpkins for each design, at the entry of the porch or on the porch," she said.
In 2020, she decorated 250 homes in the area, earning herself $100,000 for the side-hustle hobby.
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This year, Torres told Fox News Digital that her company, Porch Pumpkins, has decorated and designed over 1,000 homes.
Within five to 35 minutes, Porch Pumpkins says it will transform the front entrance to homes with festive decorations.
In December, once the fall season ends, Torres' company goes back to the homes they decorated and takes down the displays.
"I love the holidays — I think October and pumpkin season mark the beginning of the holiday and the start of festivities," she said to SWNS.
Torres believes the displays make "people so happy and bring joy."
