It's about gourds



Here are Kick Ass Acres today we planted this year's gourd crop and
cleaned up last year's in preparation for Sweet Thing to start
painting gourds for sale and gifts.



Plant gourds. Use birdhouse gourds, dipper gourds, or other plain
gourds -- don't use the little decorative gourds. If you plant dipper
gourds, plant at least two hills -- let one trail on the ground, run
the other up a trellis. The gourds on the ground will have curved
handles, the ones on the trellis will have long, straight handles.

In the fall, after vines are dead, cut the gourds off the vines --
leave a fairly long stem on the gourd. I cut some of mine with 1 - 2
feet of vine or stem.

Using a hole saw, cut a 1-1/2 or 2 inch hole in the body of each
gourd. Set them on a ventilated rack of some kind, not touching each
other, not touching anything but the rack on which they sit. I put
them in the overhead of my garden shed -- it's not heated or cooled.

Leave them alone all winter. Ignore the stuff that drips out of them,
ignore the mold that grows on them. In winter, the cold, dry weather
will kill the mold and dry the gourd.

In the early spring -- late April-early May -- take 'em down. Clean
out the seeds and dried up innards. Wipe the inside as smooth and
clean as you can.

Make a mixture of warm water and bleach -- use 1 cup of bleach to two
gallons of water. Wash the exterior of the gourds thoroughly with the
bleach-water mixture -- I use a rough sponge for the
washing-scrubbing. You do this to get rid of the mold that has grown
on the outside of the gourd. Rub hard enough to get most of the crap
off the gourd but don't crack the gourd.

Set aside, let 'em dry. When dry, spray with three coats of
polyurethane varnish -- use gloss, semi-gloss, or satin, depending on
what you plan to do with the gourds.

Get some acrylic paints and artist paint brushes and paint your gourds
-- designs, pictures, flowers, Santa, cats, dogs, whatever. After the
paint has dried and hardened, spray a couple of top coats of
polyurethane to protect the design.

Another method is to use 000 steel wool to clean the mold and dirt off
the gourds instead of bleach water. Then, use 220 grit sandpaper, or,
a 220 grit sandind sponge to sand the outside of the gourd smooth. If
you don't like the "natural" look left by the mold, paint the sanded
gourd solid with a couple of coats of primer. You can then paint with
the acrylics directly onto the primer; seal with a couple of coats of
poly.



Here are samples:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Painted-Gourds/


http://activerain.com/blogsview/1360520/speechless-sundays-the-space-coast-art-festival-in-cocoa-beach-florida


http://www.midgeart.com/gourdpainted.shtml



Here's some fancy embossing:

http://www.americangourdsociety.org/slideshow/enamel/print.html



http://www.gitaland.com/tutorials/tutivy.html




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