I'd like to pause my World Card Making Day Celebration, well, in a different way. Today was actually a pretty crafty day. I have had many chances but kept passing them up with a lot of excuses. But finally I attended my first gourd art class conducted by Julie Sitzema, Lady Gourdiva of Pilliwiggins Garden. I have always loved Pilliwiggins gourds, since seeing them for the first time at the Royal Craft Show in Castle Farms. I have several of them in fact, beautifully nestled in our dining area.
The class was divided into three sections - the first part being the history of gourd art. This is followed by the different steps in making gourd art, from growing and prepping, to the crafty side of it all and finishing. The last part was giving the attendees a chance to play with little gourds.
A few years ago, Julie sent me small gourds to play with. But since I haven't used gourds before, I got "scared" of even trying. After attending Julie's class, I now have a better understanding of gourds and the right way to handle them.
It was a treat to see the Lady Gourdiva's creations. And what's more, she brought extra gourds in the raw for us to take home and do the entire process again by ourselves.
I started drawing a design on my little gourd during the class. Then I took it home to try and test different media on the gourd. So far so good, but I'm not yet done. You can see here that my gourd is waiting to dry.
I can't wait to finish my first gourd project. I hope it won't take long for me to do so. But for now, I'm really glad that I attended this class. It sure was inspiring!
For more information about anything gourd, visit the Pillywiggins Garden Website. And if you live in Northern Michigan, you can have a chance to see (and own) beautiful gourd art by the Lady Gourdiva herself at the 5th Annual Winter Fantasy Art Show in Petoskey, MI on December 14th.
'Til next blog!
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