More crafts

The Crushed Glass Collage class was great as it was so interesting to learn the techniques to make designs and pictures out of broken glass. They mostly had broken wine bottles, beer bottles and a few other colored glass. We learned how to break the glass correctly and how to glue and build. My friend Peg and I made the handbag design and really figure we would do it differently next time. The others used rounded pieces of glass to build it higher to start with, and then add more glass on top of that. We just picked pieces and filled in the design. I chose to mostly used broken pottery in black and white checker design and pink and green broken dishes.... I now know I put on too much glitter at the end as I think it is a bit too sparkly... Others made a cross, a cowboy boot, a jug and a fleur d'Lis .......
The size is 10 x 12 on the canvas and I may paint the canvas a different color yet....

Yesterday we went to the Gourd Festival....mind blowing to see the thousands of people that pack the place over the three days it is open. We learned a bit on the usage of gourds and saw them made into many artistic items that were for sale or were juried. We started in the Kindergourd building where it told about gourds in the very basic forms. Then on to the marketers and asked questions on certain things. One fellow only sold the carving saws, drills, sanders and burning tools to use on the very hard shells. He was from Berkly Calif and said the best bits in the world for the burning tools that he buys, come from Martinsville Sk.

Unbelievable the beauty of some and the intricate carving , painting, and embellishing with wire, feathers, jewels etc etc.  The Wuertz Gourd farm (which is just down the road from us), sells about 45000 gourds of every shape and size and I do mean every shape. It was fun watching people hold up the weird shaped ones, imagining what they could be come in an art form, and piling into their wagons or baskets.

And of course, lots of food booths, offering things like Kettle Corn, Fry bread, sugared nuts, curly chips, all kinds of BBQ, hamburgers, sausage dogs, and the two things I have avoided at each festival we have been at....frog legs and alligator.  I would not even buy fries from a booth that sold those two.  I would not want alligator juice on my food.

The gourd I bought is pictured above. I will need to soak it in water for a few days to soften it enough to take the outer skin off , try to use my own tools to cut it open to remove the inside seeds and the dry material (which is highly moldy and one needs to wear a mask while doing it) and then make it into a wonderful piece of art, a bird house, or a bird feeder or if that doees not work, just use the pieces for compost....( which may be what happens when one does not have the proper tools.)