Crafting gourds for additional income

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Dawn, yes, please.

 

[Wannabefree]

Thats cute how you used the seed for the roofing material on the little houses! That IS the seeds, right?

 

[Dawn419]

I wish I could say that I grew all the gourds used in those projects but I cheated and ordered them already dried from Pumpkin Hollow Gourds.

For the birdhouses and sewing basket, I used Chinese Bottle and Martin gourds. The planter was a large Tobacco box gourd. The Toad Houses are Cannonball gourds. The "shingles" are the gourd seeds from when I cleaned them out. I attached them to the gourds using outdoor grade silicone.

9/10ths of the pictures I used for decoupaging are from years of Birds & Blooms magazine. I keep the pix in a large expanding file case and they are orgainzed into manilla folders by types of pictures.

My tools are as basic as I am: wire clothes hanger pieces, various sturdy shells, an exacto knife, etc. For marking the holes I want to cut out I used lids, bowls and bottles/jars...whatever was handiest.

I don't have a complete tutorial put together but always wanted to do one. I'll work on that in a few days and get it posted here.

The closest thing to a tut' that I have are:

Pic glued to gourd:

Painting picture in:

And here's how I put together the toad houses:

Cut out the stem area (will add chimney here):

Mark hole on bottom for toad to get into the soil:

Added chimney and porch roof using other scrap pieces of gourd and siliconed into place:

Started shingles:

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

LOVE the pix. Now I have no idea what gourd to plant the most of.

Will wait for tutorial before I decide. Probably.

 

[Dawn419]

The only thing I'd do different with these, is coat the finished product with clear shellac. Did countless numbers of Modge Podge but within 2 -3 years the MP just quits holding up to the weather. I'll get a pic of the first birdhouse tomorrow so you can see just how bad it looks now.

I love working with the Martin birdhouse gourds, there's so many things you can do with them.

When I came up with the porch roof idea, I used Egg gourds for them, as the shell is thinner and they are super easy to cut with an exacto knife. I used the eggs to do the cow ear's too.

If I remember correctly, I used the long sections of dipper and maranka gourds to make the chimneys on the toad houses.

The toad houses worked well using the apple gourds, too but I don't have pix of that one.

 

[Wannabefree]

Now I wanna grow gourds

 

[Dawn419]

The only thing I'd do different with these, is coat the finished product with clear shellac. Did countless numbers of Modge Podge but within 2 -3 years the MP just quits holding up to the weather. I'll get a pic of the first birdhouse tomorrow so you can see just how bad it looks now.

I'd like to re do this one but the Carolina Wrens have taken up residence in it so I've just let them be.