DIY Valentine's Day Gnome » The Basic Moms

I haven’t really been in the mood to decorate for Valentine’s day. In the past, I have been that Mom who decorates for every season. Since we moved back to Texas, and my house is completely different than my last two, I’m unmotivated to decorate for holidays. Having said that, I have seen gnomes everywhere lately and I think they are so stinking cute. So, I thought let’s craft some Valentine’s gnomes to put on my dining room table.

When I say I have seen these gnomes everywhere, I mean everywhere. From shirts to bookshelves, gnomes seem to be the in thing right now. Before we go much further I am gonna warn you this gnome is a little tricky. Mostly because I’m not super careful with hot glue and I get impatient. So I have forewarned you. I would not suggest you do this craft with kids unless they are skilled in hot gluing.

Here’s what you will need:

Socks (got mine from Target’s dollar spot)
Beans or Rice (I got Pinto Beans)
Hot Glue and Hot Glue Gun
Hair Tie
Furry Ribbon
Wooden Beads
Fabric to coordinate with your socks
Fabric Scissors or Regular scissors

Let’s get to crafting!

Start by heating up your glue gun, because if it is anything like mine it will take a while to heat up. We are going to start by making the body. You will need your sock, beans or rice, and hair tie.

You will want to fold your sock back on itself to put in half a bag of beans. The amount of beans or rice you use is totally up to you, but that’s how much I used.

Fold the sock back up over the bag to get the beans in. I found this the easiest way.

Once you have your beans in you will want to tie off the beans to keep them in place with the hair tie.

Then cut off the excess of the sock. You will then put the excess part of the sock over the other one to make it look more smooth.

Hot glue the bottom and top down to keep it in place.

Then it is time to make the hat. You will need your fabric for this. Depending on the size you want depends on how big your triangle is. For this one, I went with a small triangle, and my other one was double the size.

You will want to hot glue two sides together, with the right sides facing each other. In other words, the design should be facing itself and you should see the back of the design.

Like this. Make sure your glued edge is all the way glued down so there are no gaps. You could sew the edges together, but for “easiness” sake we are hot gluing. Then you are going to want to turn your hat right side out. And fold it to where the seam is on the back, like the picture below.

We are going to cut off the excess and make a cone.

Then we are going to hot glue the edges up and make a seem so there are no rough edges on the finished product.

Yes, that’s a little tricky, but it looks better in the end. Again if you are good at sewing you could sew the hem in.

For the fuzzy top I took about an inch of faux fur ribbon and wrapped it at the top and glued it in place.

I did find that I had to glue the very top together otherwise it gapped.

Now this size hat didn’t need any stuffing, but larger hats do. My larger hat I added a little bit of stuffing probably about a small handful.

Now let’s finish him off, we are almost done, I promise. Just a few more burned fingers, or is that just me?

For the beard, we are going to take the faux fur ribbon and cut a few inches off. Use your gnome as a guide to see how long your ribbon needs to be. Then trim it into a beard shape.

Then you can hot glue that beard onto your body.

Then I put a bead of hot glue all around the body to attach the hat, don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about the nose.

Top that gnome with his hat, then place the bead on him for his nose with a dot of hot glue.

And there he is. If you did the bigger hat, I found that hot gluing the hat to itself made it have that floppy look. It won’t naturally flop, due to the hot glue, which makes it stiff.