We always feature the works of local gourd crafters & artists in our Retail Store in Carlisle, PA! Here are just some of the creative, beautiful gourd items available now for Spring. Add a handcrafted, one-of-a-kind piece to your home!

 

This past weekend during our Spring Open House, we held a paint-your-own gourd eggs, birdhouse and basket workshop! Both adults and kids enjoyed being creative and we enjoyed their masterpieces! Here are some of their wonderful creations. Some of the eggs have been entered into our Kids Art Contest. (Winner will receive a gourd basket filled with goodies. Contest winners will be announced March 23rd.)

“Like” Meadowbrooke Gourds on Facebook for even more great photos!

Happy Friday, everyone! We’re especially in the spring spirit today because it’s the first day of our Spring Open House events for 2012, which includes paint-your-own Easter eggs, baskets and birdhouses!

Last week we posted some ideas for crafting and painting gourd Easter eggs. Now that you have your eggs, today’s post is all about creative Easter baskets. Don’t forget: we have raw gourd eggs available for sale online or stop by our Retail Store today or tomorrow (3/16 and 3/17) to paint your own. We provide all the necessary supplies.

Blooming Easter Basket:

 

This beautiful basket is so cheerful and easy to make. Simply hot glue faux forsythia flowers to a plastic or metal bowl. Cover a wire hanger with ribbon, shape the wire using a coffee can, and hot glue to create the handle.

Papier-Mâché Basket:

 

This Easter Basket project is a great one to do with the kids. These “bird’s nest” baskets are made with shredded pieces of brown paper lunch bags and dictionary pages. Visit countryliving.com for the full instructions on how to create your own.

Rose Basket:

 

This beautiful rose basket is made from crepe paper. The bucket underneath is a simple plastic bucket made for mixing paint.

Abby Candy Dish Basket:

Our Abby Gourd Bunny is originally meant for a candy dish, however this unique gourd can be filled with any Easter treat or decoration. Just fill with Easter grass and your painted eggs for a lovely display or give as a gift!

We’d love to see your creative Easter baskets! Please share them on our Facebook page or Twitter page.

 

Bring the cheerfulness of Spring into your home with our 2012 Spring Collections. Bunnies, chicks, ducks, wildflowers, eggs, carrots – all hand-crafted from dried gourds. These unique pieces will last from year to year.  Just click on the photos to learn more about each product.

 

 

 

This Easter decorate your home with eggs! They are simple, beautiful, and nothing says springtime quite like them. There are a lot of projects that use real eggs for centerpieces and decor. When you use GOURD eggs, however, you have a special piece that can last from spring to spring. Here are just a few projects to try using gourd eggs. We found all of these projects on Pinterest!

First, purchase your raw gourd eggs here. You can paint and decorate them however you like! The inspiration is endless.

Create an egg and moss wreath:

 

This is so simple and beautiful. Glue Spanish Moss to a grapevine wreath. Paint your gourd eggs with beige craft paint and speckle with brown craft paint mixed with water-based faux glaze (1:2 paint/glaze ratio). Use a toothbrush to get this spatter effect.

Easter egg place setting:

 

Use a gourd egg to mark seats in a place seating! Your guests can take home their personalized egg as a favor.

Decoupage your gourd eggs:

 

Source: marthastewart.com via i dream of chairs on Pinterest

 

Use Mod Podge to decoupage beautiful papers or pages from a book to your gourd Easter Eggs for a beautiful display.

More Gourd Easter Egg inspiration coming soon!

We get a lot of questions about our processes of growing, harvesting, drying, and crafting here at Meadowbrooke Gourds and we love talking about what we do.

Here are just a few facts and insight into the growing process at our gourd farm!

We grow 50 varieties of gourds on 20 acres and harvests about 250,000 to 300,000 gourds each year. Growing season begins in early spring when seeds are started in the farm’s hothouses. The seedlings are then transplanted by hand into the fields with row covers protect the young plants. We water them using a drip irrigation system.

Pollination does occur nationally by moths, but a team of seasonal workers use cotton swabs to carry pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers to fertilize as many flowers as possible. Each gourd flower is only open for one night.  The moths still continue the process naturally, but we started hand-pollinating about five years ago just to ensure the yield. The entire process is very hands-on and labor-intensive from start to finish.

The gourds continue to mature through the first frost!

We welcome tours of our gourd farm. Click here for more information.

Decorate your home for Easter with a unique gourd basket hand painted by YOU! Talented local artist, Wendy Young, will be holding two Easter Basket painting classes on March 3rd at our Retail Store (125 Potato Road, Carlisle, PA). The cost is only $25 and includes all supplies.

The 10am – noon class will be painting the “Chocolate Bunnies Running Wild Basket”:

The 1:30 – 3:30 class will be painting the “Hippy Hop Bunny Basket.”

No prior experience necessary to paint these gorgeous keepsake baskets!!

You may register in store, by calling us at 717-776-6029 x102 or send an email to bethm@mbgourds.com.  Prepayment is required.  Should you need to cancel, you must notify us 3 days prior to the class or there will be no refund. Classes are limited, so please sign-up early.  Join us Saturday, March 3rd  and  welcome Wendy into our gourd family!

 

 

We’re very excited about one of our newest gourd collections – Wildflowers. The new collection could be described as “rustic chic”. Each piece is natural in color with a beautiful flower to decorate the center.

The medium lit gourds are approximately 5 1/2″ in diameter and comes with a green electric light that shines through the vine cut out design.

The small is approximately 4″ in diameter and comes with a rawhide tie around the neck of the vase.

How beautiful would one of these gourds look as part of a rustic bookshelf display like this one?

We are sending all of our blog readers a virtual gourd bouquet to say Happy Valentine’s Day! We hope it is a wonderful day spent with those you love.

Purple martins nest almost exclusively in man-made structures like a birdhouse constructed from one of our raw, cleaned gourds. If you’re eager to attract this large swallow species to your backyard, a dried and cleaned gourd can easily be constructed into a birdhouse.

 

 Procedure:

• Select a well-dried and aesthetically pleasing gourd. Remember, thick walls will ensure that the gourd birdhouse will weather the elements well.  Varieties with broad bottoms like Martin and Bottle make good choices here.
• Using a 2″ circle saw, drill a hole roughly 3 inches above the base of the gourd.  Work slowly to avoid splintering the gourd.  The circle saw bit will leave a clean-edged hole.
• The gourd will still be full of seeds and some internal membranes, so you can empty those out through the hole you just cut. Don’t throw away the seeds! They can be planted to produce your own gourds during the next growing season.
• Drill three small holes in the bottom of the gourd for drainage. 1/8″ will do nicely here.
• Drill two holes at the top of the gourd and thread either sisal twine or thin wire through to hang the birdhouse.
• You are now free to paint, stain or seal your gourd birdhouse in any way you’d like. Bright solid colors work well.

If you need some creative inspiration, here’s a selection of gourd birdhouses available at our online store.