Mother’s Day is May 8th.  Show Mom how much you care with a handcrafted gourd she is sure to love and treasure for years to come. Here are some of our Mother’s Day Gift suggestions:

This gourd butterfly house will add a beautiful touch to Mom’s garden or on the back porch.  Here are some great tips she can use to attract butterflies to her new house.

Who wouldn’t fall in love with this adorable little tweeter bird!? The kids can make homemade cards for Mom that says, “Mom, you are so tweet!”

This cottage gourd is such a nice way to tell Mom she makes the house into a home.

Each person in the family can add to her cottage by giving her the bears to create this lovely bear family scene.

Our irresistible Murphy gourd with his floppy ears and puppy dog eyes will be sure to warm Mom’s heart.

Also, don’t forget to bring mom to our Spring Fling on April 30th!

Happy Mother’s Day!

We’re so glad that we had such a great turn out for our Gourd Egg Hunt a couple weekends ago. But in case you didn’t get a chance to come and have fun with us then and since Easter is on Sunday, we thought we’d share some great ways to have an egg hunt at your own home!

The great thing about egg hunts are that they are such a classic way to have fun with your kids on Easter.  If you’re working with different age groups, be sure to accommodate for all.  Try assigning a different color egg to find for each child or make it into more of a scavenger hunt by making a list for the kids to find – for example, 2 red eggs, 4 blue eggs, 3 purple eggs, etc.

While a lot of the eggs can be filled with candy treats, consider adding stickers or bouncy balls as prizes inside the eggs!

One suggestion that we found to be very interesting is to change up the time of your hunt. Instead of having it in the morning or during the day, consider giving the kids flashlights and heading out to look for their eggs at dusk! Could put an interesting twist on this contest.

Happy Easter!

Spring is here and you know what that means: cleaning time! As you go through your closets, cupboards and drawers we’re sure that you must be finding a lot of things that you aren’t sure if you should throw away or recycle. Its hard to know what to do with things like old make-up or empty printer-ink cartridges. In honor of Earth Day this week, we wanted to share this great guide thanks to our friends at Real Simple. Here is the ultimate A-Z guide of what can be tossed in the trash or how you can recycle these things! Wondering what to do with that old toothpaste tube? Toothpaste tubes: Even with all that sticky paste inside, you can recycle aluminum tubes (put them with the aluminum cans), but not plastic ones. Or what about wipes and sponges? Wipes and sponges: These can’t be recycled. But sea sponges and natural sponges made from vegetable cellulose are biodegradable and can be tossed into a compost heap.

Wine corks: To turn them into flooring and wall tiles, send them to Wine Cork Recycling, Yemm & Hart Ltd., 610 South Chamber Drive, Fredericktown MO 63645. Or put them in a compost bin. “They’re natural,” says Matsch, “so they’re biodegradable.” Plastic corks can’t be composted or recycled.

Our suggestion: Turn your wine corks into a wreath or craft!

Beautiful wine cork wreath by twoheartscreation on Etsy!

Check out the complete A-Z list here! Happy Earth Week from Meadowbrooke Gourds.

Frog Gourd from the Local Artist Corner at our Retail Store

We hope that you all are having a great day! It is absolutely beautiful here in Carlisle. If you have ever considered growing your own gourds and this springtime weather has you in the mood to try it, here are some tips and advice for you to get started. The process of growing, drying and crafting your own gourds is a fun one to consider.

Gourds crafted by Meadowbrooke Gourds

This time of year in our Zone (Central PA -Zone 6)  is actually the perfect time to begin growing gourds. Plant your gourd seeds in about a 3 inch container or pot. Be sure to use no more than 2 seeds in each pot.

P.S. We offer gourd seeds of all shapes and sizes at mbgourds.com and in our retail store.

After they have been planted, soak the seeds with water. Then place the gourds in sunlight somewhere in your home and water them regularly like you would any normal house plant.

June 1st is about the time to plant your already potted gourds outside!  Make sure to plant the seeds outside in full sun, leaving about 8 inches between each plant. When watering, be careful not to soak the leaves themselves because this could spread disease. Try using soaker hoses or drip irrigation.

Don’t forget: Frost is an enemy of gourd plants and will ruin them. Be sure to check frost conditions so that your plants can grow to their full potential!

For more detailed and specific instructions be sure to check out our website!

Happy Planting! We’d love to hear about your gourd planting and see pics so please feel free to share.

Join us on April 30th for our Spring Fling Event! This is the perfect opportunity to get that special gift for Mom. We are also really excited to be able to offer a new Class – Create your Own Cat! Here are the sizes and colors you will be able to choose from:

Don’t miss out on our 25% retail sale and free gift with $25 or more purchase. Celebrate Spring with us! More information:

This past weekend marked the last of our Spring Open houses. We hope you had a great time! Stay tuned for more photos from this past weekend. Until then, here are some photos we grabbed of all the fun on the first weekend.

Attendees were given the chance to paint their own gourd bird houses, eggs and baskets! Our customers are so creative.

Even though the weather was a little bit chilly, that didn’t stop everyone from having fun at the Gourd Egg Hunt!

Kalpana’s Fine Soaps had a display at our Open House as well!

Thanks to everyone who came out and made this Open House so successful!

This past weekend was the first of our two open houses for the spring. It was a great success! Even though we were a bit nervous about the weather, it thankfully held out and stayed dry for our egg hunts! All of the egg hunts were completely full making the weekend super busy! Check out this video footage of one of the egg hunts on Saturday afternoon as well as the paint your own Easter eggs and baskets!

Don’t forget to come out this weekend for our second and last open house of the spring! We’ll be having create-your-own gourd bunny and our birdhouse Oops! sale will be going on. Visit our website for more information. Hope to see you all there!

We are considering a new class this month at Meadowbrooke Gourds! It would be a Create-Your-Own Cat Class during our Spring Fling to be held on April 30th. Below is a photo of the two sizes and 5 colors you would be able to choose from. We would love to hear from you if you would be interested in this class!