It's Decorative Gourd Season!*

I'll be honest, I don't particularly like Thanksgiving. Turkey isn't one of my favorite things, and I actively dislike gravy, sweet potatoes, asparagus, olives, pecan pie, and weird pickles - which just so happen to be some of the staples at my family's traditional Thanksgiving dinner. The holiday seems to center around this food - well, this food and football. Even worse, the traditional color scheme of brown and orange just kind of bums me out. I will admit that some of the colorful turkey decorations can be cute, and I think it's adorable to see kids dressed up as pilgrims, but even that seems one sided. When I try wearing the Native American headdress I got at a post-Halloween sale, suddenly I'm irreverent and weird!

At the same time, I do love decorating for holidays. Usually, I just leave up my Halloween stuff until it's time to switch it out for Christmas, but if I happen to come across any nice items that would work well for Thanksgiving, I'm all for it.

So, when Kaitee, Kelly, and I found out that a nearby glass-blowing studio would be hosting a workshop in which we could make our own glass pumpkins, I was all on board. In the best interest of safety and workmanship, the trained professionals would be doing most of the difficult and dangerous portions of the pumpkin making, but we got to have our hand in it as well!

Take a look!

Before getting started, we had to choose our colors. Kaitee is checking out some of the other pumpkins trying to figure out what colors she wants to use.

 

First, we got to dip our glass blobs into the color powder! I wanted my pumpkin to be white.
 

 



Second, we rotated the blobs of glass over the fire, making sure to rotate them evenly so that they didn't melt into a weird shape.

This was the part where we stood by idly while the professionals did the real work of shaping the glass.

If I recall correctly, this guy has been doing glass-blowing for seventeen
years or something! Maybe eleven. I have a terrible memory
 

They used this pretty cool mold to give the glass a pumpkin shape.

Next, we got to inflate our own pumpkins. We all used the same hose, which I highly doubt was sanitary.

Finally, they added the stems.

After a few days, I was able to come pick up the finished product, because apparently it had to incubate or something.

I promise you that this picture does not do it justice.

Now, I finally have a decorative gourd!

*Click here for an article by someone who really loves decorative gourds. Warning: there is a lot of explicit language.