Gum Trees - Darkroom Door

Out in the front yard we have this huge gum tree, it's one of my favourite things in the garden, bringing welcome shade, providing a haven for local birds and an abundance of leaves, twigs and gumnuts!  Nearby are other favourites, a paperback and bottlebrush, which also bestows gifts I love to use when creating.  Spending time in nature and working with leaves, twigs and seed pods brings inspiration, joy and connectedness with God, the ultimate Creator!

Before creating these pieces, I set off for an early morning hunt, gathering a wide variety of leaves of different shapes, sizes and colours AND also was thrilled to find a few acorns along the way too!

I also painted watercolour paper with coffee.

To create the first piece, I painted a page of text with gesso and when dry stamped a Darkroom Door 'Gum Tree' image using black ink.  I then stamped Darkroom Door's 'Coffee Stain' eclectic stamp three times using dark brown ink onto torn coffee stained watercolour paper.  I then stitched the gum tree and coffee stained paper together.  

I then stamped the sentiment onto a gum leaf with black ink and heat set.  I layered a number of leaves and bottlebrush nuts together, tied up with raw silk and affixed to work.  Finally this was mounted onto a huge leaf.

This ATC was created in a similar way, but this time I added a acorn cap with a sweet little Darkroom Door 'Photo Booth' image.