Gourd beginings

In my last post I showed a picture of some gourds that had dried. I thought I would post some from the beginning...

 

 

These are dried and ready to clean; notice the different textures and mold showing on the shells.

 

 

 

 From this point, I will soak the gourds, usually on a nice sunny day in a tub in the yard.The sun keeps the water warm and speeds up the process.  They float, so I'll use old towels to wrap around them. Once the towels get wet they wick the water,(with a little dish soap and bleach added) and help keep the shell soaked to  soften the skin. After about 24 hours I start scrubbing. I've tried a lot of different ways to get them clean, but for me using a green scrubby pad and a plastic scrapper works best. Sometimes I use my thumbnail!

I feel the shell as I go to tell where there are places that still need work. While they are wet they are a beautiful deep tan color,  I've tired and can't get that color to save my life in the finished product. I'll keep trying, though.

There are a lot of different processes people use to clean their gourds, but for me this works the best. I can feel any bad places in the shell, study the shape and size, get ideas of what to do with the gourd, and most important, it slows me down to take time to appreciate the small blessings like how velvety smooth a wet gourd shell feels, the miracle that starts with a seed and ends up this hard shell, the seeds rattling inside the gourd waiting to blossom into new gourds, the blue sky, the warm sunshine, and the many other blessings God sends my way. 

I'll post on the continued process and how I end up with the finished product another day.

It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood.....

And it is. Beautiful sunshine, yesterday it got up to 48 degrees and it's already 46 this morning. Pretty good when it hasn't been much above freezing here for a month. this has been the worst winter, or should I say the closest thing to a real winter, we've had here in a long time.
I finished the gourd that was in one of my previous post, ("collecting") and plan to post it on Etsy later today. Heres' a sneak peek:

 

And I thought  for those of you who've never seen a "raw" gourd, these are some I took a picture of a couple of years ago. They've been dried but not cleaned.                  
 

I used to hate the cleaning process, I don't have much patience and it seem to take SO long.  I wanted to get to the creating part. Then I realized that the cleaning was part of the creating. After that it became a meditation time, a time when I could (try) to let my mind be still and listen to God. That's hard for me, being quiet. I believe God gave me this particular artform to show me that patience is a virtue.Sometimes it takes up to a year for them to dry, depending on the size.. I have to clean them, wait for them to dry again, color them, wait for that to dry, and each time I add an embellishment I have to wait for the glue to dry on that. And sometimes, I just can't get the look I want, so I sit the gourd on a shelf and wait for something to come to me about what it needs. Patiently.

Yes, God, I get the message, and I'm really trying. I know you will be patient with me while I'm trying!

 

collecting

I had a great day yesterday, I helped my husband cut wood (he cuts and I load) which meant I got to get out in the woods. The weather has been so nasty it's been a while since I've been out. The weather was cold but still, in the woods anyway, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

He cuts deadfall, and a lot of it has been dead long enough that the bark is peeling off, which means GOODIES!!! Which in my case means beautiful pieces of lichen and bark to bring home. I brought home a few pieces, but there are a lot waiting for me when I go back.

 

 We're supposed to be getting 10 to 13 inches of snow tonight, so it may be  a few days until I can go back.1

I finally got up the nerve to cut into my big gourd

I have an idea of how I want to proceed but of course it will change several times.I Never end up the way I started. This is actually the back. Cutting was  was the hardest part, now I'm cookin'.

I'm working on opening a second shop on Etsy, I hope to get it started tomorrow. I want to use it for photos and other things that don't fit into the theme of Beantree Designs. I'll post it here when I get it going. 

Blessings.

 

I saw a Bluebird!

I saw a bluebird a couple of days ago. I was thrilled, and of course I didn't have my camera. It's early for them to show up here, usually they don't come back until mid to late Feb. So it was really nice to see one before winter sets back in. I got a 2 mile walk in the same day, and it really felt good. I've been slacking BAD, I was walking two or three miles a day untill about 4 mos ago, then I started only walking 3 times a week , then 2, until I completely stopped. It's been about two mos now since I stopped and I can really tell. I have some Leslie Sansone Walk at Home DVD's that I enjoy during bad weather, I haven't even been able to bring myself to do one of them. So I felt really good about my walk Monday. Of course, it's Wednesday now and and I haven't done it again, but I WILL get started again. Really.

 I posted a picture of my workspace before, here is one that's just a little more realistic. I got enough nerve to dye one of only two larger gourds I have. Since I grow my own,and because of our growing season, most of my gourds are smaller.I'm figuring out how to help them along, starting seeds indoors before season, watering, etc.  This one is one I have been putting off starting  because I didn't want to mess it up. I like the color so far, and I have an idea of how I want to go forward.

I'll keep posting on the progress of this one, I think it may take a while!

No NCIS tonight

I'm a little ticked, our local CBS station is running a ballgame instead of NCIS tonight. There aren't many tv shows I watch, and I hate to miss one of my favorites. Even my husband is upset, and he likes college basketball, which is what they're playing! Oh well, I always have other things I can do.
  I finished a couple of gourds yesterday, I would have finished them over the weekend but we kept our granddaughter, and at 3 years old she gets all my time when she's here. We love having her, she is a ball of fun.
  We're still having bitter cold weather, and I'm still tired of it.

Maybe this will help:








Yeah, it's a weed, but it's GREEN and YELLOW
and it was WARM when I took it!


This, too, shall pass, and it will be warm and green and yellow and blue and spring! soon.
I've been doing a lot of looking on Etsy, and this weekend I hope to post some of my finds here. There  tons of wonderful things there.
Till then. Adieu.