Growing ! Growing ! Growing !

Hello Again, First of all I just wanted to let you know that I put some of my Holloween items in the mamapress Holloween Catalog & I'm offering 10 % off any item in my Etsy Shop from now until 11-1-11 just put in the coupon code (mamapress1) durning checkout when prompted. Mamapress did a fantastic job with her Holloween Catalog a must to go on over & check it out ! http://www.mama-press.blogspot.com/

    Now down to how much my Gourd Garden has grown ! You really need to have wide open spaces when growing gourds, they vine & vine & send out runners forever! They are growing right across the top rail of my 6 foot fence in my back yard & has attached it self all up & down that 6 foot fence ! Take a look !

Climbing up & down the fence

Yes thats my dog Kaiden on gourd watch !

It seems like everyday when we go out in the morning to gaze at our gourd garden we find a couple of more gouards that we didn't see the morning before. My husband looks around through the big leaves ! We found so far about 6 large bushel gourds in one aera !



my husband checking through the leaves

bushel gourd

We kept on watching this vine growing out in the driveway where my husband is putting up a garage & low and behold it turns out it is a very healthy gourd vine with 6 martin gourds growing on it & they are growing through a large pile of  Rocks ! Yes Rocks ! but they are growing GREAT ! Heres a look !

one of the mating gourds growing in the stone pile !



stone pile with a gourd garden growing in it !



Very healthy !

So I guess if they are healthy plants they will grow just about anywhere !
Let me know what ya think of my gourd garden ! Love to hear from you !

Tools Of My Trade !



Gourd Tool Kit

 Hi Everybody, Hope y'all are doing GREAT ! I know I'm always talking about how my gourd garden is  growing & growing & it's doing Super Fantastic right now, but I thought you might be interested in the tools I use for my gourd crafting !






Gourd Saw



Gourd Drill



Gourd Sander

I bought the Gourd Tool Kit about 10 or 12 years ago & it still works Great !  Does just about everything I need them to do ! You can buy the whole kit or just buy them seperatly.  I also use a hole saw to make the hole in the birdhouse gourds, After I cut the holes or cut the gourd & need to clean the inside I have a tool I use for that also , there are a couple of different kinds but I use this one the most,

Gourd Scrapper

Gourds are a Great canvas to paint on. After you clean them from all the mold , some have the most beautiful natural color that you really don't want to paint over the whole gourd, maybe just a flower or 2 then put a clear coat over them & they are just beautiful! I have one I'm working on now like that so I will post pictures as I go.

There are many many gourd sites that you  can go to & it mostly depends on what your looking for here is a few sites that I really like - http://www.thecaningshop.com/  - http://www.welburngourdfarm.com/  http://www.americangourdsociety.com/  & here in Tennessee http://www.tennesseegourdsociety.com/  check them out theres great information on each of them.



Busy ! Busy ! Busy ! Panting that is ?

la lakers basketball players

Never a dull moment !  Not in my woekshop, I've been busy painting . I had 2 more orders to fill. one of them being from a return customer , thank you very much ,she odered a couple of special request items which I love to do. I have also been painting a special request from an organization in Los Angles Calif who is putting on an event & having a guest speaker from the L.A.Lakers & asked me if I would donate some of my gourd  basketball players  to put in the gift bags. They had gotten ahold of me through my Etsy Shop !

votives

 


oil lamp


I've also started painting on some glass itens. I painted some frosted glass votive cups with an assortment of colorful daisys. I painbted  4 small hanging oil lamps, the lamps are 4 different colors with a colorful boquet of daisies,

baby boy keepsake box

I just seem to have my foot in the door with all kinds of new ventures we have been working on . I started doing baby keepsake boxes, I did one for our grandson & we now have 2 new granddaughters sooooo.... heres a picture of one I did for our grandson, I decided that if anybody sees them and would like to special order a certain theme I can do that so the workshop is open to any special orders or suggestions.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/inmypaintedgarden

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/In-My-Painted-Garden/170385616339261