About 6 or 7 years ago after a successful season at my church's pumpkin patch, there were an abundance of left over gourds. Bill, our youth minister at the time, suggested that because I was "somewhat crafty," (still not entirely sure what he meant by that!), I should bring them home and find some use for them. Little did I know at the time, that bringing home those gourds would begin a love affair for me! For as I confessed in the title of this posting... I LOVE GOURDS!
A gourd is defined as "a hard shelled fruit of any of various plants, whose dried shell is used for bowls and other utensils, or ornamentally. The gourds I "adopted" were green swan gourds.
I brought them home and begin to think about what in the world I could do with them. Pretty soon the gourds began to turn brown and moldy. Many people think that this means the gourds are beginning to rot and throw them away at that point. DON'T MAKE THAT MISTAKE!!!! This is just part of the drying out process that in the end makes the gourd a beautiful, one of a kind medium!
Once this drying process is complete the real fun begins! Cleaning the gourd (inside and out) takes a bit of patience and elbow grease, but the end result is worth the effort! After many different attemps at cleaning the outside of a gourd, I'd like to share my "wisdom" (ha!) on the subject. A combination of helpful hints gleened from many sources seems to be the most effective for me. Follow these steps and your gourd will be clean as a whistle in no time, and ready to be "decorated" any way you see fit! I'll discuss cleaning the inside of a gourd in a later post.
First, your gourd must be soaked for a couple of hours. This helps to loosen the icky outer layer. I soak my gourds in my kitchen sink (much to my husband's chagrin!). Fill the sink about 1/2 full with water. Add about an 1/8th cup of bleach. This helps to kill the mold and is extremely helpful if you suffer from allergies, as I do! As soon as you add the gourd to the water you'll see that yes, the gourd floats! I have found that the best way to deal with the buoyancy issue is to take an old hand towel, soak up some of your bleach water, and drape the towel over the gourd. This not only helps hold the gourd down in the water, it also keeps the exposed side of the gourd wet. Now....find something else to do for a couple of hours....and don't worry about soaking the gourd for too long.
Wow! Did those hours fly by or what??? Now you're ready to scrub! I have found that my best friend for scrubbing gourds is one of those metal scouring pads (not Brillo, the kind you'll see in the following picture - and NO my hands are REALLY not that big!!!) and a little bit of elbow grease. This will pretty much remove all of the "gunk" from the gourd, but if it doesn't, soak it a little bit longer, and try again. Occasionally I find it necessary to do a little scraping. I have an old paring knife that I like to use, you may find that you prefer some other utensil.
Once you are satisfied with the cleaness of your gourd, rinse it thoroughly and set it aside to dry. I don't recommend putting them out in the sun to dry or drying them in the oven. Rapid drying can cause your gourd to crack. Just set them aside, and usually withink 24 hours they are completely dry.
Now that your gourd is clean and dry, the sky's the limit! Gourds can be decorated in countless ways. Holes can be drilled to make gourd birdhouses. Dyes, paints and stains all make interesting affects on gourds. I also enjoy using woodburning (pyrography) tools to enhance the designs of my gourds. Experiment! Gourds are an incredible medium to work with! But I offer you this warning....they are addictive!
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