Project - Gumnut Cups & Bowls

Today’s project is cups and bowls made from gum nuts.

Here are the steps…

1. Go for a walk to a nice place where there are gum trees.

2. Collect the gum nuts that are on the ground as they have already dried and will keep their shape.

3. When you get home, cut the stalk off

4. Cut yourself a piece of course sandpaper.

5. Hold the gum nut near the opening and start rubbing the little leftover stalk back and forth on the sandpaper, until that end of the gum nut is nice and flat.

6. Now you’re ready to hold the gum nut with the flat end facing down, and start scraping out the inside. I use an old nail file to scrape out all the seeds and the ridges in there.

 

7. Once this is cleaned out, your cups and bowls are ready to be used as they are, in their beautiful natural state. They end up with lovely stripes inside, where the ridges were removed. So what will you be filling yours up with ? I used red lentils.

8. Or if you’d like to paint them, you can use an acrylic paint. This will need about 6 coats. If you want to apply less coats, then it’s a good idea to sandpaper the outside of the gum nut so that the paint covers it better. We didn’t sandpaper the outside of our gum nuts so that’s why you can still see the brown of the outer shell through the yellow paint.

You can also do this with any big gum nuts you find…just cut them in half so they’re not as long, then follow the above steps. They make really nice cooking pots or larger bowls.

We'd love to see your creations! Tag us on Instagram @the_pixie_patch if you decide to post what you've done.

Happy creating !!! See you next time.