Make your own Standing Gnome

For some reason I really like gnomes.

Every time I see one in a store or online, it brings a smile to my face.

I recently decided to make myself a gnome for decoration.

I started with the boots as that would dictate how wide the head should be. I just used some 2X4 scrap and roughly drew each boot onto the board so that the toe portion was the width of the board. I decided to make them high enough so that I could nail the head onto the legs behind where the symbols would sit. The leg/boot is 5 1/4 inches from top to bottom.

I cut out these boots using my band saw.

Next I drew the head onto a piece of 1/4″ plywood. I wanted the tip of the beard to sit between the boots. The head is 10.5″ from the top of his hat to the bottom of his beard. Side to side, the beard is almost as wide as the boots. I laid the plywood on the boots to see if it was balanced.

Once I was happy with how it looked, I cut out the head using the band saw. I also cut out an oval shape for the nose.

The symbols were the most work of course. I had to first come up with a shape that would work with hands holding a symbol.

I traced a Pringles lid onto paper, added the hands and then trraced it onto cardboard. I used the cardboard template to trace onto the 1/4″ plywood twelve times then cut them out with the band saw.

I drew the individual symbols and hands onto each of the twelve plywood pieces.

I used my wood burner to burn outlines, backgrounds and sometimes parts of the picture onto each piece. I then painted each one followed by coating them with a matte polycrylic finish.

For the gnome I painted the beard white and nose a skin colour. I opted for a lawn green hat as it was suggested as a better colour to be interchangeable with the different holidays. I painted the boots black. I coated everything with the polycrylic finish.

Weldbond was used to glue on the nose and then my brad nailer to attach the head to the boots.

I took hook and loop velcro adhesive strips and put the receiving side onto the gnome head. Each of the symbol pieces has the opposite side of the velcro glued onto it.