Your ornamental gourds can be cut from the vine whenever you're ready. They are generally used for Autumn decoration and you won't gain much by leaving them on the vine. They may be the most colorful thing you'll see this Autumn, so ENJOY!!!

Jan

Thanks Jan, I do plan to use them to decorate the indoors this fall, I also plan to shellac them hoping to give them a shine as in stores. Most are picked so where do I place to dry, they are currently sitting on a shelf indoors. Do they need cooler locations as in the basement and should they be lifted to gain more air flow, or are they okay as is. Thanks again, certainly next year should pose less questions and perhpas some advice to others.

Ornamental gourds are usually kept just for the Autumn decorating season and then discarded as they rot or mold.
Its the hard shell gourds that are kept and dried for further crafting.
However, there are methods for drying and preserving ornamental gourds. One of those is to use some sort of mixture with powdered borax. That's about all I know about that. The other method is to green scrape the gourds and they will soon dry. This isn't always practical expecially for the knobby gourds. But, it does work for the smooth skinned gourds.

Jan