Here are some pictures of the gourds at the gourd festival and the class. I'll show you the ugly one first (mine).... The gourd I picked had an opening that was slanted. I wanted it to look like a cracked egg with little lizards crawling out (ok, I'm a little macabre!). The lizard pattern was from a Native American kit. I would like to paint the lizards a couple of shades of green and then stain the rest of the gourd so it looks natural. Here are some of the instructor's sample gourds: For this one, she used a doilie to create the pattern. It was my favorite. This is another simple but pretty one she did. Here is one with similar Native American designs to the one I did. Now here were some awesome sculpted gourds for sale at the festival. I was afraid to even look at the price!

Rocks! Great idea! I have some really smooth ones and was thinking about painting animals on them. I'm not a painter but thought that if I got this book The Art Of Painting Animals on Rocks , I could at least try it. Has anybody done this?

Would that I could have heard it purr! Your car is fun and I completely understand your love for it, but it had a major "head cold" when I met it and I'd have loved to make its acquaintance post plugs. Congrats to LF on the school thing. Of course this means that more homework you talked about. I wouldn't doubt that he's initially disappointed as he transitions from a lifetime of school being stupid easy to being challenged on a daily basis and being average among his peers, but once he gets past the "disappointment of becoming normal," I'm sure he'll thrive!

You can buy pretty paper napkins. Separate the layers of the napkin and only use the decorative layer. Tear it into workable pieces. Ragged edges is what you want, so don't try for neat and tidy. :) Then use mod podge, or watered down Elmer's to cover the egg with the pieces of paper. Let it dry well. You can coat with another layer of just the mod podge. It dries shiny. Use a bottle cap to set the egg so that it can dry without rolling around. Cover any areas that were not covered in the first round. Then if you want you can add beads, pearls, glitter; whatever is pleasing to you. I used to do this with my kids when they were young, (and so was I ;).