More Alcohol Ink Play with a Gourd and my Proxxon Tools!

I did a little safety blog on my post, but one thing I want to tell or remind anyone that is working with gourds is to always wear a respirator and goggles. More over on my blog lol. I had such a fun time working with the alcohol inks on my gourds that I wanted to do it again. Hopefully I learned from the first couple of tries!

The items needed for this project are: 

Proxxon MicroMot Jigsaw
Proxxon MicroMot Drill
Twisted Paper
Alcohol Inks ( three colors that go together ) + Copper Mixative
Black Acrylic Paint
White Spray Paint
Small foam paintbrush
Krylon Kamar Varnish
Lint free material to apply ink with (some people use felt applicators but I like to use the wedge shaped make up sponges)
Latex gloves
Waxed Linen Thread
Leather Needle
Something to make a level circle around your gourd

Okay, as you now probably know you start off with a gourd cleaned on the outside and draw a level line around the gourd where you want to cut it.

After that take out your trusty Proxxon MicroMot Jigsaw   and cut that baby! I won't show the part where you clean out all the yucky insides until it's smooth with no loose pieces that could possibly come off later.

Then you want to spray paint the outside of the gourd with the white spray paint and paint the interior with the black acrylic paint. (Being very careful not to get the black paint on the outside of the gourd!)

Then get busy with your inks! I pick pieces out of the top of the sponges so that it doesn't cover all of the gourd. I started with the yellow ink, dried it, continued with the orange, dried it and then finished with the red. After, my colors were on, I then used the copper scattered around the gourd and it made everything just go together and pop!

I then used a sharpie marker to go around the top with black and I got out my Proxxon MicoMot Drill and drilled holes 1/4 in. down and 1/2 in. apart all the way around the gourd and used  my needle and thread to coil the twisted paper all around the gourd.

I used a chocolate brown  twisted paper and thread and coiled five layers around.

  It turned out really pretty didn't it?

This picture really doesn't do it justice. I loved the way it turned out though. Make sure you check out the Proxxon Tools website and the tools that they have there. Awesome tools!

Barbara