In My Painted Garden: In The Begining- Did You Say Painting And Gourds ,.....

I LOVE painting! I am self taught and I have SOOO Much more to learn ! I first got interested in painting when our boys were in school, Our son Kurt would come home from school every day and watched the painting channel usually Donna Dewberry & Folk Art One Stroke Painting. He NEVER painted and NEVER picked up a brush to paint, "he said he just liked watching her ! " I have bought almost all the early books, DVD, Vidoes and I watched and practiced and still practice but hopefully one day I will be able to meet Donna Dewberry and take some classes , it would be Great to go to her Dewberry U in Florida ,I would Love to be able teach Folk Art One Stroke painting someday. We have 8 boy's and All have different interest of course. They are All grown adults now, five of them have children of their own and we have some Beautiful grand children

Our son Kory & his lady Ashley do crafts , they do barn wood & wood signs & wreaths & many other crafts check out their face book page, which we will post the link below, they also do custom orders. If you check them out you can tell them you jumped over from In My Painted Garden's Blog . . Another son Zachary is a tattoo artist .

So my son Kurt got me very interested in painting , in fact the first gourd I ever painted was an Uncle Sam birdhouse gourd

Maybe you ask " Why Uncle Sam " ... There used to be a daytime TV program that when I got home from work I watched or tapped..The show was an hour long and show cased crafter's from around the world . One segment in particular was about a woman who painted gourds , I had tapped it and absolutely FELL IN LOVE WITH GOURDS !!

This is Our Family 24 years ago

So we searched out gourds (we lived in Michigan at the time ) Found a GREAT farmer who has a FANTASTIC gourd farm . He took us out in the fields and we learned alot , then we picked what we wanted . So every year to couple of years we try to make a trip to the farm where we have bought our gourds since I started painting on them and we buy enough to fill the back of our panel van from top to bottom and front to back and hopefully that's enough to last for a year ! We have had to have some shipped to nus and BELIEVE YOU ME --- SHIPPING --YES EXPENSIVE !! But then again if you are having a shipment of like 25 to 50 big birdhouse gourds shipped or even a big box of small ornamental gourds shipping is expensive . That's why we try to keep our cost down a bit . But if you have ever shipped any place it depends on the weight and location , rural or city. I myself find that USPS (United States Postal Service) has worked out GREAT for Us . They have always been on time and I have compared prices and they are the Best for Us.

When we bring them home my husband gets to work and sets up his little washing station and gets to cleaning them and set them in bins. Here's a short little video snip it of him cleaning them . Enjoy >

Next step of course deciding which ones are going to be birdhouses and bird feeders. Then to decide weather to make them character players ,flowered, pine cone roofed or anything else we can come up with

These are just a few of the birdhouses and bird feeders that we have done, some of these are sold but can be ordered , some are Custom made and some are for sale now..

This Pink Gourd Bird feeder is a custom order that we had done for a customer she bought a few of them in different colors and flowers and sayings for when her friends birthday came along . We had a fun time painting them for her she told me the colors and what she wanted like flowers, butterflies, ladybugs . So yes when we say custom orders WE mean Custom you tell us everything and We DO It Your Way ! We Love It !

This yellow Unique Whimsical Pansy was one that was just painted & listed at Our Etsy Shop

An assortment of Our Football Player Birdhouse Gourds , we can do any Team Player. We also do Baseball and Hockey Players in birdhouse gourds !

We really hope you enjoyed a little look as to how we got started painting and with painting on one of NATURES PALLETS gourds !

Until The Next Time ,