In My Painted Garden: February 2016

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Little Gourd Players Step In With Friends

We have been trying to catch up on all my painting and these little players are a Big part of our product line...

This is how we start with the process of making my ornamental gourd little guys...

We have a couple of crates full of these small ornamental bottle gourds. These little bottles We Love to work with we can make snowman ,football,baseball players,we can make pumpkins with ghosts on top for a Halloween decoration or even painted stacking pumpkins. Actually the possibilities go are kinda endless if you let your imagination go "WILD '

I get out my painting pallet ( it's really just a foam plate, they make GREAT inexpensive ,durable painting pallets) Plus they are so darn CUTE when they are done and Great little gifts !!

After we are done deciding who or what we want to paint them as then it's time to take them outside to my finishing station,where we put on the final spray coats of the urethane (my spraying station as you can see is when it's nice outside is actually a hanging pant stand where we hang them on it to spray on the primer , urethane and where they dry.

These are just a few of the little players that we have done and sold and made more . Some were custom orders where we put a name or number on them (FOR FREE) You just have to contact us via email is best.

These sets here (the band boys above and the Graduates were Custom Orders that we have done .

We do All kinds of character ornamental gourd people and these are just a few of them and of course working on alot more .

These are the Halloween ornamental pumpkin/ghost gourds, they are just a cute little way to decorate inside at home or for the office, for your children or maybe grandparents,coworkers,they make cute little gifts.

We do baseball (does your child play baseball ) or maybe a Favorite Team -school etc.

Or how about somebody serving in the Military (these were actually done for a customer )

Hope y'all enjoyed taking this little tour of our "Little Gourd Players" and All the other characters that we can make out of these little bottle ornamental gourds. Don't forget that if you need a UNIQUE One Of A Kind Gift for that SPECIAL hard to find person , Just drop us a comment or email or visit our Etsy Shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/inmypaintedgarden and we will help you with your CUSTOM gift needs!

Until The Next Time,

P.S. Would Love to hear from you....

Friday, February 12, 2016

The Making Of A Birdfeeder - Custom Made

Yes this is my hubby getting ready to cut a bird feeder out of a gourd, this video snip it shows basically what he doe's .

These two pictures here show you just how thick most of our gourds are ,yes there are some that are thicker and yes there are some that are not so thick.,But for the most part we have been pretty lucky getting our gourds from the farmer that we have been buying from for years ! He has always had great quality gourds, the first year we went out to his farm it was durning picking season and he drove us around on a gulf cart all around his huge farm. He talked to us the whole time and we learned so much from hem from the soil to growing and how to pick out the thicker shelled gourds! He lives in Michigan (we are from Michigan moved 9 years ago to Tennessee ) and we try every year to go back to him and get our gourds and if not I have them shipped to us from him. We have not found any around here that compare to his , but to be honest we haven't looked around very much ( we like our round trip, road trips to Michigan !)

Hubby has the bird feeder holes cut and now he is cleaning it out with our gourd cleaning tool to make sure that all of the seeds and seed pocket out of it. He also has the holes drilled in the gourd for all four perches and we had already sprayed it white. So after he is all done cleaning it out it will be ready to put the finishing base coat of color.

Here is the finished cleaned out bird feeder gourd ready for the finishing touches...you know like hand painted flowers,vines and leaves and maybe some butterflies...

Or maybe some custom orders likes these matching Redskins Bird feeder and Birdhouse that we have made for a really good repeat customer !

Or maybe this custom order that we did for another customer

We can do just about any gourd birdhouse or bird feeder that you may want to order for that Special Occasions, Birthdays, Anniversaries , Just that Unique hard to find gift !!

If you don't see it in our Etsy Shop ,Just Let Us Know and We will Take Care Of You !

Until The Next Time ,

Check Us Out At :

www.inmypaintedgarden@yahoo.com

www.etsy.com/shop/inmypaintedgarden

www.facebook.com/pages/inmypaintedgarden

www.twitter,com/inmypaintedgard

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Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Gourds, Tools and The Man That Does It All

Here's the Man (my husband ) that does it All for me - from cleaning the moldy gourds , to cutting on the gourds, cleaning out the of the gourds and he even paints some also ! We love working on them together ! We come up with ideas for the faces on our Lighted Pumpkin/Ghost Halloween Gourds > We've been known to stay up until 3-4 a.m. just to finish orders or last minute show ideas ...We have Fun ! Thing is if your Not having Fun with what your doing...you will get Board and might give up ...Have Fun in what you Do

In this picture above my husband built this wooden what we call " The Gourd Cutting Stand " It's Not really a "gourd cutting stand " it just aids him with his cutting on the gourds ! It can also be used as a painting stand , the stand itself keeps the gourds All sizes (not the ornamental gourds ) stationary or it can be adjusted so you can turn the gourds . He also has made places on the stand for holding his drill bits , hole saw,cleaning tools , A great thing to have . I told him I thought that maybe if he made some up he could sell them ( of course his above is just a prototype) What Do Y'all Think ? Would You Bye One ? Please Leave Your Comment Below ... We would Love to know what you think ...

I put a couple of small little snip it videos so you could check it out.. I have some more videos of him using his gourd jig and will post them .

He measures all the holes for the birdhouses and the bird feeders, so that all the holes are even all the way around. This one here is going to be a bird feeder !

Oh Yes our boy Kaiden our lab isn't far from the action ! He thinks he has to be anywhere and I mean anywhere we are ! He goes from one to the other when both of us are at home...Kaiden is peeking out from under the table with his head laying on daddy's lap..Not sure what he thinks he's gonna get other than ..a little saw dust in his face ( which we don't let happen ! ) his picture taken and alot of LOVE !!

Here he's helping me work on the Beehive Gourd Birdhouses ...we both have alot of fun when we are working on crafts together. He does alot of the small detail work for me ...