Thrifty Thursday: Birdhouse Gourd Crafts

This project was a year in the making, so plan ahead this year and see if you can come up with some seeds from a friend. My daughter and I first saw some birdhouse gourds made in to fairy houses at the MN Renaissance Festival and we knew we wanted to try it. We weren't interested in purchasing on that was already made for $35+ and we didn't feel like spending $12 on an already grown and dried birdhouse gourd. So, last year I bought a seed packet (couldn't find anyone that had grown these to share seeds with) and we planted them. Over the winter, spring and most of the summer we let then dry. We started out with 4 gourds that we were saving but one didn't dry well and ended up rotting and another ended up getting broken by my son before we could do anything with it, so we were left with two. One for each of my kids to make something with.

We decided to use up spray paint we had to paint them and would embellish them afterwards. My daughter was excited for another reason to try out spray paint.

You can see the finished products above, but my son decided to make a "Dinosaur Cave" out of his gourd and I made him a needle felted dinosaur to play with in his dinosaur cave. Also be sure to check out my Felted Soap tutorial.

My daughter made a fairy house and I made her a needle felted fairy to go along with it, check out the other needle felted fairy I have made her in the past.