hqcreations:

hqcreations:

Making Gourd Containers

@hyggehaven – so glad you shared that ornamental gourd craft post. I had to try this on my own.

First thing I gotta say…these were bitches to open and clean! The skin was very though and the nooks and crannies in these gourds makes it very difficult scoop out cleanly. Of course, I was not using the right tools; too lazy to find my pottery tools.

I also realized I do not have a proper drying facility, Using the toaster oven, I set the lowest temp, and left the door open, but the heat was hard to manage. Some of the edges still got “toasted” and unfortunately I lost vibrancy in the color. Later I noticed placing them on top of the toaster oven offered a much better source of indirect heat and air flow for drying.

My hope was to make containers, but the drying process creates a lot of shrinkage as warping, making it impossible to have a perfect lid. But still, I’m using one as a sugar bowl, another as a potpourri pot, and the scoop turned out to be pretty scoopable!

It was a fun experiment! Now I want to practice this primitive skill with a real gourd…

I know a lot of peeps are probably transitioning to Wintery and Christmas decorations, but hold on to those decorative gourds and upcycle them!