Gourds

Josh grew some gourds this year, and I took one and put a design on it.

I cut out a paper pattern of a leaf, and placed it on the gourd and took a sharp object, (I used and old ink pen that didn't write any longer) and trace around the pattern. Once I had all the leaves I wanted on the gourd, I then removed the skin from around the leaves, leaving the gourds skin on the leaf part.


Once that was done I cut the top off of the gourd and I filled the gourd with water and left it for about a week. After a week had passed I removed the inside mushy part of the gourd, then I refilled the gourd with water and ritz dye, and left it set for several weeks, checking it about once a week to refill it to the top with water. After several weeks the skin that was left on the gourd began to want to mold and dry out, so I emptied the gourd and cleaned the inside out with water, and then removed the gourd skin that was left to make the leaves. Everywhere I had left the gourd skin to make the leaves the skin soaked up the dye from inside the gourd.

You can use natural dyes if you don't want to buy dye. You can use very strong coffee to make a brown.

Here was the results I got for my first try at this method. I used a dark maroon dye.


Has anyone else used this method?

I also have some little itty bitty mini gourds.
So what do you do with itty bitty gourds...make little dippers!

I found some more gourds to show you.
My mom found a picture of me when I was young, and a garden friend of hers had sent me a gourd, and my mom painted it for me, I still have it.




It's a birdhouse.

And this is a birdhouse I painted.



And this one is my favorite one. It is a music shaker, my mom made it for me. She drilled some holes in the handle and laced some leather on it and then added a bead and feather at the end.



When I was young we planted gourds on a cone shaped trellis and I could play inside it like a teepee.