Decorative Gourds

Last blog post I mentioned that my husband had reminded me of some gourds in the shed.  I had put them there to dry after Thanksgiving of 2012.  I put them out there and promptly forgot about them.  Well, they are nice and dry by now.  I simultaneously received a newsletter that offered free tutorials on working with gourds, so I guess I'll take a hint from the universe and start on the gourd project.  It is probably good timing.  If I wait until autumn to get started, the season to display them would most likely be over before I get them finished.  This way, at least the gourd painting will be completed, and I will be ready to add them to decorations.

I have wanted to work with gourds for a while, but just never got around to it.  I usually purchase some gourds in the fall for part of my decorations that span across Halloween and Thanksgiving.  The gourds sit in a wooden pumpkin bowl while the Halloween decorations are out, then transfer into a wicker cornucopia to last through Thanksgiving.  However, I am trying to be more budget conscious these days.  Depending on where they are purchased, I could be paying for them by the pound or by the bag.  Enough gourds for my intended purposes usually runs me twelve to fifteen dollars.  That cost won't break the bank, but over the course of a decade that amount is roughly the equivalent of an electricity bill.  I decided that I would dry the gourds and paint them so they could be used year after year, rather than purchasing new ones each year.  So that is how the gourds came to be drying out in the shed.

Earlier on in my crafting career, I had a hard time with working with crafts out of season.  However, I have learned how to work on seasonal projects at other times of the year because there have been many times that the holiday came before I had completed the project.  It always seems that a project takes much longer than I think it is going to take.  At least I am not the only one with this problem.  I recently read a newsletter from the Chamber of Commerce that had an article on the difficulties that arise between a business and its client when there is not a good understanding of how much time it will take to complete a project.  It just does not seem as if it should take so long to do something, but thinking about how to do it and actually working on it are two different things.  Many times it takes double or triple the perceived time to complete a task.  I have learned to start early on seasonal projects, even if it does not feel right.

Before getting started on my gourds, I watched the tutorials on painting gourds (See Wednesday, Jan. 1st. blog post for a link to the tutorials.)  The tutorials had a lot of good information, but a lot of it was on how to use specific products designed for that company.  I am sure they were well designed for the purpose of painting gourds, and if I were to go into painting gourds in a big way I would probably purchase a kit.  However, at this initial stage, I am planning to use materials I have on hand.  For example, the company recommends sealing the gourds with their Formula 49.  They don't say what it is.  In the past, I've run into situations where purchasing some company's special product meant that I was purchasing something that could have been obtained in a generic form at a better price.  So I decided that I would read some gourd forums on the web before deciding on how to proceed with my gourds.

One thing I can tell you is that there is no consensus on how to seal a gourd.  There are many different methods out there.  I'm giving some of the highlights of my reading here.  Some people submerged their gourds in buckets of Thompson's water sealer.  However, many of the posts did not say for how long to submerge them.  I suppose if you were going to do a lot of gourds on a regular basis you could save the product and reuse it, but for a one off project, that is a little expensive.  Other people used Spar Varnish, but noted that if you do not cure the gourds in sunlight, the varnish would yellow.  Sealing with multiple coats of polyurethane was also popular, but someone said that the yellowish color of the dried gourd bled through.  Others used acrylic craft varnish.  One person, who seemed to be involved with painting quantities of decorated gourds said that she used up to seven coats of acrylic varnish on the gourd before painting to make sure that mold stains did not bleed through the paint.  Since I only have a few gourds, I'm probably going to use the acrylic varnish I have on hand.  As a side note, virtually everyone said that they had trouble with paint peeling on the gourds if they were used outdoors, regardless of the pre and post painting sealing methods.  There seemed to be a consensus that wood burning without painting was the best way to go for outdoor applications.

Cleaning the gourds is another matter.  Dried gourds are covered with mold.  Wear a mask or respirator when cleaning them.  I scrubbed mine in a bleach and water solution with a stiff brush.  If I planned to work with gourds regularly, I would just as soon purchase them pre-cleaned.  I can't say that cleaning gourds outside in winter was a fun activity.  But, the gourds are clean, dry, and ready to be sealed.  The picture above was taken after they were cleaned and dried.  I have begun to put on the coats of acrylic varnish.  I expect that will take a few days to complete the sealing process as I have to varnish a portion of each gourd and let it dry, then come back to varnish the other portion.  I should have the coats complete
in three or four days. 

I updated the blog page today to show the picture taken this morning for my series of photos on how this field changes over the course of the year.  It was raining again this morning.  This is the third Sunday in a row that it has rained.  An ominous sign has appeared in the field, which is shown in the second shot.  The plot of land has come up for sale.  This has happened before.  Sometimes a for sale sign sits there for a year and then is taken down to wait for a better time to sell.  The appearance of the sign causes a lot of concern in the neighborhood  because sooner or later some developer is going to buy it and change it into at best more homes, and at worst, a commercial building of some sort.  I hope I have the opportunity to see the field bloom with vegetation this year.