gourd ornaments christmas

Four small owl sentries watch and wait for the holidays to arrive in artisan Daniel Vargas's handmade dried gourd ornament set. The Andean practise of mate burilado which stands for "engraved gourd" is renowned; mate gourds found in the northern part of Peru are dried and then chiseled to create life scenes, geometric figures and images. The craftsman employs these traditional techniques to give the owls their features and feathers, and for a unique touch, he adds natural red dye to the front of the birds.

For the design of this three-ornament set, Huancayan artisan Daniel Vargas has carved ascending flowering vines against a red background on each dried mate gourd. Mate forms part of the same creeping vine family as pumpkins and melons. The Andean community of Huancayo has a strong mate burilado, or "engraved gourd" legacy, wherein the mate fruit is dried and then engraved with unique designs using a buril, or "burin".

Stylized peacocks and pretty flowers pose on festive ornaments — one each in green, red, yellow and orange. Working in an ancient art they learned from their father, the Canto Sisters craft the set from dried gourds harvested from the yerba mate plant. They are cleaned, dried and painted before the images are meticulously engraved around the surface by hand.

Cultivated on the Peruvian coast for 6,000 years, mate gourds were decorated with images of birds and fish by the pre-Inca Moche and Chimu peoples. But it was the Inca who went on to use the gourds as cups and bowls, in ceremonial objects and in musical instruments.

Because each unique piece is handcrafted from a natural gourd, please expect slight variations in shape, size and motifs.

Wearing colorful caps with flowers on the end, three owls patiently await the holiday season. Peru's Margarita and Martha handcraft the sweet bird ornaments of dried mate gourds. The bird ornaments arrive nestled in a storage box.

Wearing colourful hats, wide-eyed owls eagerly await the holiday season. They sit on crescent moons surrounded by bright golden stars in a set of three ornaments that are crafted by hand with traditional fabrics. Woven on traditional looms, the cotton blend fabrics cover card paper ornaments and hang from silk organza ribbons.

Mate or calabash gourd is used in Peru for creating decorative and utilitarian objects since pre-Hispanic times. Artisan Blanca Canto handcrafts and hand-paints this cute set of four ornaments with dried calabash gourd in the shapes of penguins and snowmen representative of the holiday season.