Gum Blossom Ornament
Christmas decorations are often depicting a magical winter scene and while it's easy to be transfixed on the beauty of a white Christmas, it is unrelatable to the reality of a summer Australian Christmas. With this in mind I've set out to create more Australian themed Christmas projects this year that best reflect what Christmas is to us.
These Gum Blossom ornaments can be made into a single hanging or multiple to create a garland.
Materials
- Twine
- Large gumnut
- Green felt
- Red felt (yellow or pink for other blossom colours)
- Light yellow/brown embroidery cotton & needle
- Saw & drill (optional)
- Scissors
- Glue gun
- Paper & pen
How to create your Gum blossom oranments
Saw off the end of the gumnut and bur the hole wider with your drill. This step it completely optional.
Cut your red felt rectangle (mine is 85 x 47mm) then cut strips along about 3/4 the way through, keep going across until you reach the end of your rectangle.
Apply hot glue along the non-cut edge and roll the red felt up. Put hot glue inside the gumnut and push the glued end of the red felt, inside the gumnut.
Draw up a gum leaf in a piece of paper and cut it out. This will be your leaf pattern. Pin it to some green felt (I used the shade Flax from Indigo Inspirations). Cut out two leaves and then make a small hole about 5mm inward from the top of the leaf. Next take your embroidery cotton (I used 3 strands), and stitch down the leaf and back up. The knot will be hidden at the top of the leaf just before the hole. Repeat for the second leaf.
Next get your twine and holding both strands together tie a knot, put the ends through both holes in your leaves and tie another knot underneath them. Cut off any excess twine. Put the twiggy part through the holes in the leaves, past the twine. Apply a small spot of glue where needed to attach your leaves onto the gumnut (knot side down so it's hidden).
Then your gum blosson decoration is all finished and ready to hang on the tree!
You can use other colours for different coloured blossoms and if you want to make a garland out of them, instead of making your loop for hanging, tie your first knot of twine on the underside of the leaves and then on top of the leaves leaving open ends so you can attach each one to your main garland twine. You can even cut out more gum leaves (perhaps in a couple darker shades too) and put extra leaves along inbetween blossoms.