Gourd Books & Gift Certificates For Sale

Gift Certificates are now available! Please call or email us.

The following books can be ordered by email or phone. They can also be purchased by visiting our farm.

Gourd Puppets and Dolls: A Do-It-Yourself for Crafters

By Angela Mohr
Price: $14.95

Book Description:
These projects join two age-old skills: gourding and sewing. With simple techniques, you can combine gourds with a cloth body to make dolls or puppets to enjoy or give as gifts.
In this Do-It-Yourself guide, you'll learn how to make:
- a gourd ragdoll
- reversible dolls
- marionettes
- even bobble gourdheads!
- And much, much more

Making Gourd Headpieces: Decorating and Creating Headgear for Every Occasion

By Angela Mohr
Price: $14.95

Book Description:
Angela Mohr uses scraps and misshapen runts of gourds to make fun things to wear on your head.
With simple tools and supplies already in the house or from a local craft shop, you can make tiaras, barrettes, seasonal headbands, and hatpins and also use gourds to decorate your hats and bonnets.
In fact, with a gourd thinking cap, like the one shown in this book, you can create your own projects! Mohr provides easy step-by-step demonstration of how to make and decorate a variety of headpieces.

Making Gourd Ornaments

By Angela Mohr
Price: $12.95

Book Description:
162 clear color photos and lively instructions teach readers to create imaginative and colorful
Christmas ornaments made from hard-shelled, miniature gourds. The designs include birdhouses, snowmen,
angels, tree balls, double tree balls, tree toppers, and wall hangings. Step-by-step instructions
proceed from initial gourd cleaning to final painting, wood burning, and the installation of hangers.
Simple tools are required to complete the projects. Advice for growing gourds and a gallery of finished
ornaments are provided to fire the reader's imagination to create beautiful handcrafted objects.

Gourd Art Basics: The Complete Guide to Cleaning, Preparation and Repair

By Angela Mohr
Price: $14.95

Book Description:
In this new gourd book, author Angela Mohr demonstrates how to select and prepare gourds from the
garden and demonstrates basic techniques for cleaning, shaping, and fixing gourds, which then can be
decorated for everyday use, such as bowls and vases.
This do-it-yourself how-to is perfect for any beginning gourd artisan to learn the finer points of a
gourd, fix their common flaws and put the gourds to good use as accessories around the house.

The Works of Robert Rivera

By Robert Rivera
Price: $80

“Arguably the finest gourd painter in the country.”

“A combination of Spanish, Indian and French heritage informs Robert’s designs. From decorative animal images to festively feathered kachina masks, he draws inspiration from many cultures to create his unique vessels which make the leap from craft to fine art. His favorite designs are classic Acoma, Zuni, Hopi and Mimbres, patterns that reflect the timeless character of the different cultures. He does not copy the designs, preferring to personally interpret them, but so deeply connected is Robert to the artistry that went before, that some years back, while attending an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, he was startled to come across a piece of prehistoric pottery, twelve hundred years old, with the exact same design of a gourd that he had painted.”
-- http://www.trailofpaintedponies.com/profile/rivera.html

The Complete Book of Gourd Craft

By Ginger Summit & Jim Widess
144 Pages
Price: $18.95

22 Projects
55 Decorative Techniques
300 Inspirational Designs

From Library Journal:
Gourds have been used for centuries as containers and decorative objects. Hardshell gourds with brightly painted faces and figures recently have become popular items at craft sales. This book covers growing, harvesting, and curing as well as crafting and finishing. Gourd crafters must work with the natural shape of the gourd, which cannot be reshaped once it has dried, but it can be cut, incised, painted, and embellished. The projects, presented by experienced gourd crafters, are artistic and imaginative and cover all techniques of dealing with gourds.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description:
“This book covers growing, harvesting, and curing as well as crafting and finishing....The projects, are artistic and imaginative and cover all techniques of dealing with gourds.”
—Library Journal.

“Lots of inspiring gourd crafting techniques and ideas—I highly recommend The Complete Book of Gourd Craft...its 300 color photos... depict many...amazing things you can create...plenty of detailed information.”
—Organic Gardening.

Making Gourd Dolls & Spirit Figures

By Ginger Summit & Jim Widess
224 Pages
Price: $24.95

Book Description:
Dolls that dance, dolls that protect, dolls that charm: these beautiful gourd dolls do that and more. Ginger Summit and Jim Widess—authors of The Complete Book of Gourd Crafting and Making Gourd Musical Instruments—pay tribute to an ancient craft in a volume both inspirational and instructional. It’s packed with images of dolls from different cultures and eras, filled with testimonials from the most creative artists working today, and brimming with advice and irresistible projects. Summit and Widess explain how to choose a gourd, mold one as it’s growing, clean it properly and safely, pyrograph and sculpt faces, create movable joints, and make such creatures as a simple, limbless Stump Doll; beaded Zulu doll; endearing Hobgoblin; and stacked Mother and Daughter dolls.

Gourds in Your Garden: A Guidebook for the Home Gardener

By Ginger Summit
128 Pages
Price: $18.95

Book Description:
Book Description Whether you're a seasoned gardener enchanted with their lush vines and unusually shaped fruit or a crafter in search of the perfect gourd for a specific project, this easy-to-use primer takes the mystery out of growing gourds. Largely ignored by most gardening books, gourd plants require specific attention to produce healthy vines and satisfactory fruit. Learn how to:

* Identify popular gourd shapes
* Plan and cultivate your garden
* Grow, train, and harvest a bountiful crop
* Control pests and disease with natural remedies
* Prepare your gourds for use-in recipes and art projects.

Lists of suppliers, a growing calendar, and space for notes on your own garden conditions make this the complete gourd sourcebook. A delight to read as well as a lasting reference, this long overdue guide to the adventures of growing one of Nature's greatest gifts is an essential addition to any gardener's library.

About the Author:
In 1990 I became intrigued with the idea of decorating gourds. However, in pursuing this interest, I became quite frustrated trying to find instructional books - they were few and far between.

What began as a craft interest quickly became a passion as I discovered unusual uses of gourds in marketplaces and museums around the world. Extensive contacts with craftspeople and artists in this country revealed a vital interest in gourds as a new medium for expression.

As a retired teacher, I wanted to share this new found knowledge with others hoping to provide the long needed resources, by writing books and articles on gourds.

Gourd Crafts: 20 Great Projects to Dye, Paint, Carve, Bead, and Woodburn in a Weekend

By Ginger Summit
80 Pages
Price: $14.95

Book Description:
The many virtues of the humble gourd have been recognized for centuries. Used throughout the ages as storage vessels, dishes, utensils, musical instruments, and decorative items, gourds are a favorite craft material nowadays, affording an ideal surface for painting, carving, wood burning, cutting, and otherwise embellishing. Ginger Summit's excellent directions, supplemented with clear, step-by-step photos, demonstrate all these techniques, in which you learn to transform various gourd shapes into masks, candleholders, bracelets, numerous containers, and many other items. The designs complement the medium perfectly and make for relatively simple projects. A resource page lists suppliers and contact information for tools and the dried gourds themselves.
--Amy Handy