We’ve added a gallery of available gourds. Some of these are available on Etsy but others are either Halloween inspired or in reserve for shows. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be yours….because they certainly can. If you see something that you are interested in just leave a message here or contact us through our Facebook page or Etsy. Edgar is one of our available gourds. (correction: Edgar is no longer available) Connie
Edgar
I really couldn’t do Christmas gourds without doing Frankenstein. He is my go to guy when I can’t seem to do anything else. I love the Monster and his beautiful Bride, too. I’ve done tons of art which include them. For Christmas, I just wanted to give him a hat and a scarf. He is a pretty friendly monster who doesn’t ask for much…. maybe just a few spare parts now and then. But don’t worry…the living are safe. Here he is, then….the Monster…aka Frankensanta. Connie 🙂
Thanksgiving is the best holiday. Not that I am a grinch…but Christmas is a bit stressful at times, especially for procrastinators like me. Today there are no expectations…there is nothing to do but come together and share a meal and the company of our family and friends. My sister Laurie always hosts because …well…she has the only house that really, truly fits everyone in comfortably. She works incredibly hard to bring it all together. Another reason I love Thanksgiving so much is that once every six years my birthday comes on Thanksgiving. Today it is my Thanksgiving birthday and I am feeling a little special. Maybe there will be a candle in the pumpkin pie!
We’ve started to work on Christmas gourds. So it was tough….we had to switch up our thinking from slightly warped to slightly sweet. I worked on a few things….Father Christmas, a snow Queen and these little guys. Here is my version of Christmas elves using little foam pumpkins for heads.
A couple of Elves
Have a truly terrific Thanksgiving….love from Connie
Ok iam Gwynne and I love a good craft or refinishing a nice piece of furniture,I don’t like to write so I probably won’t be on here a lot except to like something or put on a picture of my latest project . Well if I can get my granddaughter to type for maybe ill blog more . Ok iam off to gather some materials for the project iam working on????
If I am not working on Gourds, I like to keep busy working on other art. One of the things I love doing is creating what are known as Artist Trading Cards or ATCs. Here is a recent one I did for a swap on one of my art trading sites. She is the Autumn Queen.
The only rule about an artist trading card is that it has to measure 3 and 1/2 inches by 2 and 1/2 inches…about the size of a baseball card and it has to be TRADED. You can use any medium to create the card. I have done collage, colored pencil, pen and ink, and watercolor. My favorite medium is watercolor. I love the look and continue to learn more with each new painting. Some people do sell these little works of art. That is what is known as an ACEO or Art Card Editions and Originals. There are lots of sites dedicated to collecting and trading these little works of art. Two of the best sites for getting involved in the mail art community are ATCsforAll and IllustratedATCs. ATCsforAll is a great site for beginners and people who are nervous about their skills. It’s fun, friendly, and an amazing place to start. IllustratedATCs is a juried site…meaning that you have to submit artwork and be approved for membership. I am a member of both sites.. posting as Kiddio55 which is my username. Of course there are lots of other kinds of mail art that are traded, too. People trade postcards, recipe cards, rolo pages, moleys/art books, art dolls, peg people and moos just to name a few. It is a fun way to get to know other artists, see and own original art at no cost, and improve your skills. I have been involved in the mail art community for about 3 years now. These are some of my cards, art dolls, peg people, etc. These all belong to other artists now and in their place I have received some amazing little works of art. You can check out more of my work at AFA and IATCs.
This is an art doll I did. My first and so far only art doll. She is a self portrait of sorts….morning me with my coffee and my IPad. I am wearing my favorite necklace and some warm and cozy PJs. I couldn’t really trade her away because I love her too much. 
One of my favorite characters that I have created is the Queen of Hearts. She is based on the Tim Burton version of the Alice in Wonderland character. I knew I wanted to make her come to life as one of our gourd creatures. I drew the face on a foam pear and it started from there. I thought about the skirt and finally settled on a clay pot which I painted and decorated. Judy had the inspiration for using some red sisal she found at a garage sale for the hair. She also supplied the little portion of table leg that I used for the bodice of her dress and created the neck ruffle from scrapbook paper. I found a little seed and painted it gold thinking it would look great as a crown. So you can see it is very much a cooperative effort. We love bouncing ideas off of each other. Here she is…the finished version. You can check out more of our gourd people in our photo gallery and in finished work. This one is sold but we have a similar one in our etsy shop…..Connie
Well…it’s official….I’m going to try this blogging thing. What exactly is it….I’m not really sure> Maybe if I start at the beginning and put one word after the other it won’t seem so daunting.
The Charmed Gourd is a labor of love of craft. Every October, for the last 8 years, I get together with my nieces, sister and sister-in-law to work on a craft for Halloween. About 3 years ago we happened upon decorating gourds using real and faux gourds….we liked them so much we decided we would try to sell them and here we are! We started making what we called “natural” gourds which were faux gourds decorated with faux flowers, vines, leafs and real acorns, pods and seeds. Connie, the resident artist decided to paint a gourd with “day of the dead” features and the rest evolved from there. We took our gourd characters to local art fairs and festivals and got good positive feedback. You can currently buy our art on ETSY, “thecharmedgourd“. You can see some of the gourds we’ve sold on our Facebook page, “thecharmedgourd”.
We are currently working on some Christmas and Winter gourds and paper cone wreaths.
This summer I came across an old craft of making wreaths using paper cones made out of old music sheets. I googled it and found out there were many different ways to make them so I started on a project to make a few for 4th of July using scrap book paper 12×12 sheets. Well…that has lead to an addiction….My name is Judy and I’m addicted to making paper cone wreaths……below is a wreath I made this week, for Christmas.
Let me know if you have any questions. Judy
Red Polka Dot Wreath
We are 3 artists with a shared vision. Our gourd/pumpkin people are a mix of natural and man made products. Each is a unique and individual work of art created by one of us.
My sisters-in-law and I began this as an occasional get together for “craft night”. We had so much fun creating our “gourd people” that we thought it would be fun to see if there was a market for our art. We started with nature gourds which soon morphed into painted faces and our characters began to get more diverse. We began by doing a few fairs and art shows with some success. Recently, we opened our Etsy Shop TheCharmedGourd. We are very much a work in progress and hope to expand our work to include things other than the Halloween/Fall merchandise we currently offer. We have some movie and character themed work and are making plans for Christmas.
I hope to be able to share part of the process and of course a look at our finished works. In addition, I am hoping that we can use this format to get to know our customers and let them get to know us. I will be talking about myself some and sharing some of my other art as will Judy and Gwynne. Thank you from Judy, Gwynne and me…..Connie
Visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Charmed-Gourd/283764138395542
Welcome to our new website. We are just getting moved in and kicking the tires, so please be patient while we get things in order.