My Middle Grandson loves this poem by Eugene Field.
I've made his Sugarplum tree from dough and some actual twigs from by back yard. I've painted it with acrylics glued everything well with white glue and finished it with a coating of schellac.
This is the Sugarplum tree shaped, dried, and twigs glued into position. The candies are shaped, dried and waiting for their rainbow of colors. The chocolate cat and the gingerbread dog are also ready and waiting to be glued into place.
Sculpting Dough
2 cups flour1/2 cup salt
4 tsp. alum or cream of tartar
2 Tbls. Vegetable oil
1 cup water-Mix all by hand until it forms a ball .
-sculpt item to be made
-let air dry for a week or in warm oven at 170 degrees F
-paint when fully dry
Gingerbread Dog
Chocolate Cat
The Sugarplum Tree
Have you ever heard of the sugarplum tree? ‘Tis a marvel of great renown!
It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop Sea in the garden of Shuteye Town;
The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet (as those who have tasted it say)
That good little children have only to eat of the fruit to be happy next day.
When you’ve got to the tree, you would have a hard time to capture the fruit which I sing; The tree is so tall that no person could climb to the boughs where the sugarplums swing!
But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat, and a gingerbread dog prowls below—And this is the way you contrive to get at those sugarplums tempting you so:
You say but a word to that gingerbread dog and he barks with such terrible zest that the chocolate cat is at once all agog, as her swelling proportions attest.
And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around from this leafy limb unto that, and the sugarplums tumble, of course, to the ground---Hurrah for that chocolate cat!
There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes, with stripings of scarlet or gold, and you carry away of the treasure that rains as much as your apron can hold!
So come, little child, cuddle close to me in your dainty white nightcap and gown, and I’ll rock you away to that Sugarplum Tree
In the garden of Shut-eye Town.
Eugene Field
