Let’s Make Flowers inspires you to use the cut-off tops of gourds and the broken pieces kept in your “odd things” drawer. A fun and inexpensive project.
This is my gourd buddy, Prill Neagles. She spent a month making flowers as she stayed confined during the pandemic. She can now box them up and save them for a gourd festival or art sale. Ususally, she places them in thrift vases or sells them separately. Most will go for $10 apiece. And they are good sellers.
Let’s Get Started
Basically, gathering supplies is a year long adventure! As you work cutting gourds, you need to save the and tops and any broken pieces that have a flower shape. Personally, I like to use egg gourds, Chinese mini bottle gourds, and small ornament (kettle shaped) gourds for my flowers. I also have tops of big gourds that resemble the bowl of a flower.
Once you collect the gourds, look for embellishments. Begin with a treasure hunt in your workspace and maybe even the Christmas package decorations. Then, try the thrift stores for any old silk flowers. You can use their centers or even their leaves. Be creative here. You might be surprised what you can come up with.
I recommend you take the easy way and create fantasy flowers. They are really fun and can be charming with all the different embellishments you find.
What tools might you need?
- Drill – power drill is best
- Sharp Exacto knife
- Small hand saw
- Bamboo skewer or small dowel rods
- Small nails
- Good glue
- Quikwood
- Hammer
- Dye, inks or acrylic paint, and sealant
The Process
True fully, there are several approaches you can take and maybe you will find your way better.
Here is mine…
Importantly, clean the gourds and lightly sand both sides.
- Then, using a small gourd saw or micro carver or Dremel, cut the flower petals and add as much detail as you like, then sand the inside of the gourd.
- You will need to drill a hole in the bottom of the flower to insert the skewer. If it is a thick gourd, you can soak it in warm water to help the drilling.
- Next, you have a couple of choices.
- You can force the stick through the hole and glue it.
- Or, use the hammer to insert a small nail through both the gourd and the stick and then re-enforce it with glue or Quikwood.
- Let everything dry before going on.
- Next, paint or dye your flower and let it dry.
- Add embellishments and let those dry.
- Then, paint the stem.
- I have seen skewers, bamboo branches, bicycle spokes, dowels, and even sticks used for stems, so keep an open mind and go with something you have.
Let's look at some examples for ideas!
Start with simple flower designs. Peter Kewitt’s flowers on the left are painted with two colors. Prill Neagles’ yellow flower has no outlines around the petals.
Surprize, this is a wharty gourd!
Prill’s red flower is made from the top of a warty gourd with another small gourd part for the center.
In these examples, Prill uses a Crown of Thorns gourd and paints it pink. Then she inserts a broken gourd for the center and tops it with a decoration from a present. Her purple flower is the top part of a larger gourd and notice the pearls hanging from the middle!
Next, both of these flowers use gourd seeds. Because they are heavy, each artist has used a shard as a platform to hold the seeds. Each flower has the seeds inserted differently so there is no right way to place them.
This amazing flower took Earl Worick 7 various sizes of gourd pieces to fit one inside the other. The leaves are made of pieces cut from a larger gourd. Needless to say, it is a winner, Notice the stick stem?
This flower ornament was made by my friend, Lynne East-Itkin. It is from a cannonball gourd with a coyote gourd and a jewelry gourd inside. Stamens are made from the curly coils that grow on gourd vines. It is 5″ round. Actually, this particular ornament was on the People’s Tree in Washington DC for Christmas in 2009.
How to Display them
The first vase was created by a gourd patch for an Arizona Gourd Society raffle at the Wuertz festival. The second arrangement on the wood stump was in the competition. And the third vase is mine with Prill’s flowers inserted in a vase of ferns and sits on my patio. By the way, notice I used fake fern leaves.
The vase with the small flowers and gourd leaves was created by my friend, Bev Felber.
Prill’s yellow flower stands alone with a sego palm leave on my kitchen counter to cheer me up during the day.
The first time I made flowers, I used bamboo sticks from my garden. In the first picture you can see how I added Quikwood to secure the flower. These flowers sat outside until I took them to Wuertz. In my festival booth, I set them in the front under the lights. The first day I sold three.
The next day, a lady came to me and said she wanted to buy my flowers for her patio. I asked her how many she wanted. She said, “All of them and the basket. Don’t wrap them because I want them just as they are. They are going right to my car!” It went out the door for $100. My spring housekeeping in my studio paid off!
At this point, I hope you have your creative cells working and are ready to create your own flowers. By the way, I have saved several examples in a handout. Check the store where you can download it. You will find over 30 different flower ideas! Any tips for us if you already have discovered how much fun this is?
Please, share your thoughts here in the comment box or share them with all the gourd artists on our Facebook Group Page.
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Very impressed with the Flowers! Gets me motivated to hopefully work on gourds again soon to make some and share! Thank You for sharing!!
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