front porch gnome

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Well, it not a secret anymore that I love gnomes.  This cutie pie is sitting right on my front porch to welcome all of our guests and I think he is doing a great job!

My favorite part about making gnomes is that you can make them in any color, any holiday theme, anything!  I made this guy to go with our fall colors since I have a different gnome all set for winter.

What you will need:

tomato cage
mop head (I got 2 small ones from the dollar store)
plastic toy baseball or something to resemble nose
enough material for the hat
enough material for the body
fiber fill stuffing
glue gun and glue

Start by using a piece of duct tape and taping together the top tips of the tomato cage.  Then lay out your material on the floor, measure and cut enough material to wrap around 3/4 of your tomato cage.  Use hot glue to attach the material to the cage.



Next I attached my gnomes beard.  You could also first attach your gnomes hat if you're having a hard time eyeballing where you attach your beard.  Break off the mop head part of each broom.  I honestly, just cracked it off.  Then I found a piece of wire and put it through both mop pieces so that they stayed together nicely.  Then I poked the wire through the material just about the top circle of the tomato cage.  Use the wire to hold most of the beard in place and then use hot glue to glue your mop head to the material and to the cage wire.



Then it's time to make your gnomes hat.  I measured material wide enough to wrap around the base of where I wanted his hat to lay and added an extra 2".  Fold the material in half and cut it into a longer triangle.  Then use your hot glue gun to glue a new seam along the long edge of your triangle.  Once it has dried, turn your hat inside out so that cut side is on the inside.





Then you need to stuff your hat.  I stuffed some and then put the hat on and stuffed it while it was on.  How you stuff it is entirely up to you.  For my gnomes nose, I used a plastic baseball.  I put some stuffing around it and then used some off-white material to wrap around all of it.  Then I hot glued the ball into place around the mop head.  To give your gnome a more full beard, pull apart some of the mop pieces so that they get more full and more stringy looking.

Then he's ready to welcome all of your guests! 

do it yourself