Fun with Mini Gourds

The gourds that I have from this year need several months to dry out before I can craft with them, but I have some mini gourds left from last year that I finally figured out how to decorate them. These are warty gourds and that’s what was throwing me off with the design, but I decided to use the warts (bumps) as the item to decorate the gourd – you will see what I mean …

Dried mini gourds

First I painted the gourds with orange paint all over …

Then I sponge painted a coating of brown over this so they would look more realistic …

Do this step gently since the orange paint may come off in spots if worked on too roughly – I touched it up with the q-tip after. Let this all dry for a few hours and then design your pumpkins!

BOO!

I also experimented with some pressed flowers – glued them “gently” on the gourd since the flowers are very thin. Pressing flowers is simple – I put them in pages of phone books and weighted them down. After a few weeks they were dry and ready to use.

The gourds in the backyard garden are progressing right along – Grow Grow Gourds!