I wanted to make a snake but the shape of a gourd is just wrong - what do you do? I looked up snakes in my kids giant animal encyclopedia which really struck me. It is the Brazilian rainbow boa “Epicrates cenchria cenchria”

With a good picture and an idea of how I wanted the lines to go, I sketched the image I would use onto the gourd with a regular pencil. Then I started painting the pattern with leather dye.

All the gourd crafting books I've read recommend using leather dye to color the gourd. I had no experience with leather dye and bought some of a couple of brands. The first brand had this brown color that looked right for the dark color. This is a product called Dylon Shoe Color, it gave a sort of shiny waxy shine and went on in 2 coats. This was my first try with a coloring product and I had much better results with the red gourd and a line of leather dyes avilable in many shoe repair places, called Fiebing's Leather Dye.

The painting continues. I used a paint brush for this gourd with the water based Dylons (you can see both Dylon's and Fiebing's in this photo). It adhered pretty well. Then I added a lighter color as a stain but did not get the more orangey color value I was aiming for. You can still tell the top from the lighter bottom.



The Snake Shekere Gourd has its snake design.

Make a Shakere is sponsored by Fertility Futures, a firm focused on helping make families possible. Many would be parents are unable to realize their dreams of a family with children due to fertility issues. Fertility Futures brings medical specialists and counselors to bear on these difficult problems, helping couples with a range of solutions from fertility therapy through the use of surrogates to carry a child through pregancy for a family. In order to support this service, Fertility Futures also solicits egg donors for its ova donation program. People who face challenges in becoming parents, or healthy women who are willing to become egg donors should consider visiting Fertility Futures.

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