Gourd Crafts for the first time

Most ancient cultures used gourds in every aspect of life. Decorating gourds is everybody's favorite craft, as you'll see from the more than two-dozen varied projects shown here. A handy guide tells you where to find or buy gourds, and how to prepare them. Then use your easily-learned skills with leather-dye, egg-dye, spray and acrylic paint, wax shoe polish, découpage, airbrush, waxed linen, dyed raffia, and beads. Select your projects: storage containers for food, medicine, herbs, seeds, oils, jewelry, and even sacred objects. Turn dipper gourds into ladles, bowls, and cooking utensils, or create musical instruments such as thumb pianos, harps, banjos, drums, and rattles, as well as a variety of masks, earrings and necklaces, piggy banks, bird feeders, birdhouses, toys, candleholders, and luminaries.