You don’t have to be a professional artist for gourd crafting to be fun! There are numerous projects using raw gourds that can be simple and easy. We are excited to share a series of quick how-to’s for those that want to get their hands into gourd crafting, but may not know where to begin! We hope you enjoy these project sheets and use them as inspiration for your own projects. Please feel free to share them and share your gourd crafting photos with us on Facebook or Twitter.

Our first project is a beautiful, rustic centerpiece made with cleaned, raw egg gourds. This piece can be used for Easter as well as the entire Spring season!

Download the sheet here.

What you will need:
Cardboard box
Gourd Eggs (about one dozen) available at mbgourds.com
Glass containers at varying heights and sizes
Acrylic paint (Robin’s Egg Blue, Off White, and Brown)
Paintbrush
Toothbrush
Green Reindeer Moss

Step 1: Cut holes in a cardboard box for your gourd eggs to sit in without falling through.

Step 2: Decide how many blue, brown, and white eggs you would like to have and paint each accordingly. For the brown eggs: just leave the gourd as its natural color. For blue and white eggs: First, paint the top portion of the egg, let dry. Then flip it over in the cardboard hole to paint the bottom half. These eggs took two coats of acrylic paint to cover completely.

Step 3: Once the eggs are dry, dip a toothbrush in brown acrylic paint mixed with water. The more water the more transparent your “specks” will be. Flick the toothbrush to speckle the eggs to your desired effect and let dry.

Step 4: Fill various glass containers will green reindeer moss found in the floral section of most craft stores. Arrange the eggs in the containers. Enjoy your beautiful Spring display!

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.)

Gourd Birdhouses Galore!

Gourd Egg Creations

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

This sold-out, fun event was a success again for 2012! It was a gorgeous spring day and we are excited to donate everyone’s “admission” of one non-perishable food item per person to the Big Spring Area Food Bank! Thanks to everyone that came out.

Here are some pictures of this year’s event:

It was such a perfect spring day!

Food Bank Donations

 We were so glad to be able to donate these items to the Big Spring Area Food Bank. The Feinstein Foundation will be matching all of the donations we received!! Read about this great organization and their one million dollar giveaway to fight hunger in March and April. http://www.feinsteinfoundation.org/

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.

To continue our Gourd Easter Egg theme from last week, we have more inspiration coming your way. Painting and dying Easter eggs is a wonderful tradition. We have so many fond memories of dying Easter eggs each year with those we love. Continue a tradition with painting gourd Easter eggs! Your masterpiece and memories will last from year to year.

This coming Friday and Saturday (March 16th & 17th) we are offering the opportunity to paint your own gourd eggs at our retail store (as well as baskets and birdhouses!) Bring the family for this great activity. The cost ranges from $1.00- $12.00 and we supply all the gourds, paints and other supplies (No reservations needed). Kids can even enter their painted egg in our Kids Art Contest! Read more here.

Gourd Easter Egg & Basket Painting at our 2011 Spring Open House

Here are some gourd egg painting ideas to get the inspirations rolling:

Doodle Eggs:

To make these stark black and white doodle eggs, first paint your gourd eggs white and let them dry. Then, simply take a sharpie and draw different patterns, flowers, etc. on the egg. Let your imagination run wild!

Speckled Eggs:

We just love the look of these speckled eggs and they can be used in so many different crafting and decorating applications once they’re painted. Some of these eggs are tea stained and some have been dyed blue using blue food coloring. Since your gourd eggs will already start off as brown, you may be able to skip the tea staining step or use it to alter the natural gourd to your desired brown color. Creating the speckled effect is very easy – just dip brown craft paint with a toothbrush and splatter away.

Chalkboard Eggs:

Chalkboard paint is just so much fun. In addition to its endless uses, why not use it on your gourd Easter eggs? Include a few of these lovelies in an Easter basket and personalize with chalk for the recipient!

Gilded Eggs:

Probably the most simple painting project with gourd eggs, create these gilded gems by spray painting gourd eggs with different metallic spray paints. Display in a basket or glass container to make an elegant statement.

Isn’t gourd egg painting fun??

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.

All-White Bunny Collection, Abby.

NEW! The MacBunnies Family.

Easter Eggs and Carrots

NEW! Hen Eggs in a Basket

NEW! Wildflowers

Grey Bunny Collection, Kourtney

Petals Bunny Collection

Chicks and Ducks

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.

Gourd Egg from Meadowbrooke Gourds

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:

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”:

Fill your chocolate bunny basket with chocolate treats for a perfect Easter gift!

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

A beautitful basket to use for years to come

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!