First I painted the pattern on the gourd and finished with a matte varnish.

I used a canteen gourd probably about 9 inches wide.  I cut the gourd in two pieces across the width of the gourd. Use your judgment where to cut.  Just remember you need to be able to open and close the top.  Not exactly in half but an inch or so above the stem.  There is a stem that came out of the gourd.  I didn't leave that on, some people do I understand to use as part of the clasp.

We attached hinges to the back of the gourd to allow it to open and close.  We found the hinges at Home Depot, but National Artcraft has the best darn selection if you need to order multiples.  The minimum order is $25.

I bought some purses (25 cents)  at a thrift store and cut off their shoulder straps.   All I did to attach to the sides of the gourd was to cut one slit on each side the width of the strap.  I inserted about two inches (maybe a little less) into the slit and then on the outside of the gourd attached the strap with a riveting tool.   (Actually, DH did a lot of this attaching and cutting).  The riveting tool is sort of like a grommet tool which inserts some kind of metal nail or screw through the leather and gourd.  On the inside of the gourd, to reinforce the strap, I used a good adhesive (like E6000) to glue the strap to the inside of the gourd.  Ok, now the strap is attached.

For the front clasp, at the same thrift store, I found a fairly large wooden button that seemed to work with the gourd's characteristics.  It was an earring so it had one of those pierced earring post.  We removed the post and reglued it back on to center it on the button.  We put the post in that same adhesive and inserted it into the remaining part of the stem.  (Remember above, I said I cut it off; well there is a little stump remaining).  If you didn't cut the stem off like I did, you could probably just attached a piece of leather on the top portion of the purse and tie around the stem to close.

From the thrift store, there were necklaces that had some leather like lacing that had been used in necklaces.  I cut a piece about 12 inches long.  I cut a hole in the upper half of the gourd above where the button is on the bottom half.  I put a little bead on the lacing and inserted both ends of the lacing coming from the inside out.   The bead will be on the inside of the gourd to keep the lacing from coming out of the hole.  Now you have the lacing (two ends) sticking out of a hole on the front of the gourd.  On each end, I just tied little brown barrel beads.  Problem with that is the beads knock up again the gourd, so you are end up a little noisy.

The inside... I think it would have looked more professional if I would have lined with some kind of cloth (like Betty suggested).  Because I am so impatient I just used a tissue decoupage for the inside (a blue stars and moon pattern).  I had gotten into decoupage a few years back and have lots of tissue napkins.

 I think it could be done with an apple gourd too.  It might be a little deeper than the canteen gourd.  I might experiment next time with the kind of gourd.