Date : April 24, 2018
We were inspired by the 100th Anniversary of everyone’s favourite Australian book characters to make these Snugglepot and Cuddlepie pendants.
They’re perfect for a necklace or even gift tags. However you use them, we hope you’ll make a gumnut baby pendant too. 
What you will need:
- Gumnuts – at least 6
- Gum leaves and other bush finds
- Six small wood beads
- One quantity of salt dough (see below recipe)
- Hot glue
- Acrylic Paints
- Ribbon for hanging and bow
- Paintbrush & Pencils
Step 1.
Salt Dough Recipe:
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1 cup table salt
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 tablespoon oil
Mix together in a large bowl, we just used our hands pretty simple dough
First we made our pendants with the salt dough. We three with a round shape and two with gum leaf inspiration shape. We tried pressing leaves and nuts into the dough to give them some realistic textures which was fun. Once you’re done don’t forget to put a hole in the top so you can hang them. Lay on baking paper lined tray and bake in the oven at 120 degrees Celsius for about 2 – 2 1/2 hours, we turned ours over after the first hour. Leave to cool before painting.
Step 2.
Next we made our Gumnut babies by hot gluing two gumnuts together. Then we drew faces on the small beads. We found pencils best to work with. We found some tiny red caps that come off red flowering gum blossoms that make perfect little hats but use whatever you find. We glued these on next. Then we hot glued our babies into their gumnuts and put them aside. For the gum leaf pendants we simply made little a little posy of gumnuts and hot glued them together.
Step 3.
Once our salt dough had cooled we painted using acrylic paints. We tried to stick to colours we find in bush foliage. Leave them to dry completely. You can add a coat of varnish if you wish.
Step 4.
Once all parts were ready we hot glued our gumnut babies onto our round pendants and our nut posy’s onto our pendant leaves. To finish our necklaces we added our hanging ribbon and a bow.
This is a contribution from Crafty Bel! Crafty Bel is here to help stimulate little imaginations and spark a creative flame in little people. Inspired by May Gibbs’ own passion for creative writing and art, Bel helps educators and mums to embrace nature inspired creativity. You can find more of Bel’s work at Mums Take Five.
