The July meeting will be held Saturday the 18th at Bobbye Kee's home. Bobbye would like everyone to be reminded that it's to be a potluck. We will be working on gourds that Bobbye cleaned, and below are her instructions.


It all has to do with your imagination and how you see the gourd as a doll. These are some of the things you need to make a doll;
a clean gourd
* a head that you have sculpted or a base for polymer clay face,
* paint to paint a face on the base (or to paint a polymer face)
* arms for people and/or legs for animals with a wire armature for attaching them
* pieces of fabric to make the costume or clothing - or you can just paint the gourd instead
(You could also papier mache on the gourd add lots of beads and this and that)

I do have a DVD on making gourds which are all painted, and it is a good way to get some ideas. The gourds I got are all sizes, but I just cleaned about 20 of the smaller sizes that we can work with. The price will be about $2.00 for the ones I cleaned. The bases of the gourds are about 5" with a long necks, and a few have round tops. A few cleaned canteen types make good purses. I do have lots of all sizes that need to be cleaned, so you can get more to take home to play with on your own.

For cleaning you need:
* a bucket to soak them in,
* bleach (10%) and water
* wet towel to put over and weight to keep them under for 30 min. or longer.
* copper choreboy
After scrubbing the skin with a copper chore boy (you may need a mask for they have mold spores on them). (the steel kind rusts). I used an old knife to scrub off the skin. Then rinse them in clean water and let dry. I have wire, and made 10- faces for small gourds that you can paint.