I headed to Fabricland on Nov. 1 to buy some faux fur. It comes in these rolls almost as tall as me. The minimum you could request was to have it cut to 8” so I didn’t have to buy a whole metre but it ended up being 8 inches X 5 feet. Luckily for me it was on sale at 55% off for the month of November so only $6.79 for all that fur.
Needless to say, that much fur can make a whole lot of gnomes. I decided to get started on some right away.
Materials
2X6 as long as you want your gnome’s height to be
saw
sandpaper
Faux fur
scissors
Christmas coloured fabric, paper or paint
Wooden ball or bead
hot glue gun
Directions
The scrap piece of 2X6 I found in the garage was 18.5” long. I found the center of the board and marked it. Next I made diagonal lines from that point to the end corners of the board.
I thought this would only get me two triangles. It turns out I ended up with four! I cut the board in two pieces then I cut the full length of each side of the triangles with the band saw. The pieces cut off fit together to make two more triangles…see 1-4 in picture above. Sand each triangle to remove any rough edges.
Wood glue worked to keep the two triangles together; make sure to wipe off any excess. The two pieces wanted to slip askew so I tied elastic bands loosely around the top and it helped keep them in place to dry.
My next step was to figure out how big to make the beard. I made a half oval shape with the straight edge the width of where I wanted the beard to meet the hat. I decided on roughly three inches up from the bottom of the triangle as beard.
When cutting the fur, make sure the half oval is placed the right direction with the curve the same direction a the hanging hair. As you can see I cut one the wrong way (cut gap on the right) and it will have to be used in a smaller project.
Also, IMPORTANT when cutting the fur, you put your scissors between the fur and backing and only cut the backing.
I decided to make four different gnomes. For each one you need enough material to cover the area above the beard plus 1/4” to cover the backing edge of the beard. Just trace around the wood onto the back of your paper or fabric.
The last thing you need is a wooden ball or bead that you will hot glue on for the nose.
For this first one I used Christmas scrapbook paper. As it was not as thick as cardstock, I decided to spread Weldbond on the wood to glue it down. You can just barely see the line where I glued the two pieces together. Make sure to glue the beard, then paper/fabric and lastly the nose.
The next one, I tried to find some flannel material to match. An old pair of pajama bottoms was perfect. I decided to use my glue gun this time. You do have to be careful when gluing the beard and not let the glue strand catch or you will lose some fur.
These two blue gnomes will get placed somewhere in my kitchen as they match my colour scheme.
The next gnome I made, I wanted to match to the Christmas pick up truck I recently made. I have this red velour with a Mac tac backing. I wanted to try a wooden bead that had a face on one side and two holes. I glued it face side down. I cut two strands of the fur from the excess cut pieces and glued them right on the bead holes. This makes it appear to be a mustache. I added some batting to the hat brim as an extra added touch.
For my last gnome I chose to go with fabric again. A few years ago I found some nice fat quarter Christmas fabrics at Wal-mart. I love this plaid fabric so it just had to be one of my gnome hats.
I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to make these gnomes. I may try to make some more, burning and painting some hat patterns onto the wood.
For now, I have some adorable gnomes to add to my decor this Christmas.
They are adorable!