Show-Me Gourd Society State Gourd Festival

As some of you may know, the weekend of April 28th I attended the State Gourd Festival in Sedalia, MO. What a wonderful time I had! I took a new class with a new technique in waxing that was developed by Miriam Joy of Miriam Joy Gourd Creations. Terrific class and I love this new technique.  I will show you some gourds made with this new technique in the near future. I taught this new technique to some of my students this past Saturday and they loved it too. So many pieces of Gourd Art to see, and ooooh and aaaaaah over. There were some very famous artists who had pieces entered into the competiions. The gourd society had several different classes and catagories in which to enter your art work. I took three pieces of my gourd art and entered them into the competition. I won blue ribbons on all three of them. The first piece was entered in the catagory "Whole Gourd any technique" the second catagory that I entered was "Cut Gourd any technique" and the third was "Useful bird house any technique".

Each leaf was woodburned unto this gourd. I used dyes for the leaf color. Between each leaf was carved out and painted black. I wanted it to resemble a pile of leaves falling to the ground.

This piece actually has a tree carved out on each side of the gourd. The tree itself was woodburned before it was cut out. I could only cut out a couple of pieces to use to clean out the interior of the gourd. Very difficult cleaning and then I used acrylic paint (Metallic sapphire blue) to color the inside. The trees were painted with crayon watercolors. I used dye for the exterior of the gourd and then sealed it.

This bird house was cleaned somewhat on the inside but not completely. The bird would use what's left in making their nest. Holes were drilled in the bottom for any drainage. The outside design was woodburned into the gourd and then the shapes were painted with crayon watercolors. I put several coats of sealer on the outside.

I hope you enjoy my blue ribbon gourds, I know I was very proud to win them!! If you are anywhere close to Springfield, MO you might want to attend the next State Gourd Festival. We voted on the last day of this festival to move the festival to Springfield, MO next year. The festival will be held at the Springfield fairgrounds. If you vacation in Branson, MO you might want to schedule your vacation for April 28, and 29th 2012. I hope to see many more people there this next year. I'm the chairman in charge of lining up the classes for it. I may even teach a class myself. Please give me some feedback cause I love to hear from everyone. You're all important to me and I have especially noticed all the new followers!!

Hugs to you XX
Barbara

Why not go check out what the other Artsy Bloggers are up to this week:

Beading Arts
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Eileen-The Artful Crafter
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Laura-Taz's Corner
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Paperclay is for kids too!

And now that school is out you might want to come up with some things that the children will enjoy doing and that will make them feel as if they have accomplished something on their own. I thought to myself that Summertime would also be a good time to make ornaments for Christmas.  I started this project by simply rolling out some paperclay and using a cookie cutter to cut out some Angels........

After cutting out a couple of Angels, and poking holes in their wings, I let them dry overnight. Next day after they were dry I used acrylic paints to paint them. Once the acrylic paints were dry, I spray sealed them and added a ribbon in the hole which was poked in the paperclay the day before.

They turned out very pretty and would be so simple easy for children to make. I hope you will get some Creative Paperclay and let your children take their projects to a whole new level, you'll be glad you did  You can purchase Creative Paperclay from their blog or website. You'll be glad you did.

P.S. You can use many things to make your ornaments out of, cookie cutters, cookie molds, candy molds, or just put something together freehand. It's all good and all fun!!

Put a little bling in your life!

As my first post on my blog about the wonders of Creative Paperclay I want to show you what I made. I like things that have a little bling or kick to them so I decided that I'd like to have a gourd brooch that was embellished with Paperclay. I used a book just out by Maria Dellos on ink and gourds for a little inspiration.

I started out with just a piece of gourd that I had carved out of a scrap of gourd and with a face that I had already formed in a mold and which was already dry. (It helped to get things moving along a bit faster. I then attached the face to the gourd with just a little E6000.)

Before attaching the face I woodburned some squiggles on the gourd piece. I then painted the face with some metallic acrylic paint in gold, blue, & copper touches. 

 Once the face was attached I used some more Paperclay to make a scarf to go around the face. I then painted the scarf with metallics. (Topaz, Sapphire, Copper, Gold, Green, & Purple) It really turned into a beautiful scarf. I added a little glue and some glitter on the bottom side to enhance the scarf.

But was that enough? Oh no my friends! I then took some multi-colored yarn, wire, and some beads and added a little bling to it. I then added a pin back to the piece so that I can wear it as a brooch. As you can see that end result wasn't bad, hmmmmm, no not bad at all!

Please pardon the pictures which were taken with a black background, but trust me the whites just wouldn't photograph very well sitting on white. I love my new brooch don't you? I also love Creative Paperclay and have used it for a long time, even before gourd art. It's very easy to work with and cleans up easily with just water.  It has stood out and become my favorite clay to work with on gourds. Also check out the Creative Paperclay blog for more tutorials and projects!

Barbara

While you're looking around blogland you must check out the Artsy Bloggers!

Beading Arts

Cyndi shares her method of making a charm necklace from a vintage button!

Eileen Bergen- The Artful Crafter
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Laura- Taz's Corner
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