I have to admit I love seeing the gnomes in all kinds of decor and I have been wanting to do some in mini for a while. I was having a challenging week last week and needed an escape so I sat down with my graphics program and put one together. You can expect to see several seasonal variations of this little guy over the next year of so.
Like all my projects that I have designed a pattern for I have both a PNG for use with electronic cutting machines and a PDF for hand cutting. You can find the file for this gnome here.
I designed the pattern to be cut from a medium weight card stock. I use white for most of my projects since paint is less likely to fade over time and the also the paint helps to bind all the layers together and hide the fact that there are in fact all those layers.
Here is a picture of the pieces still on the cutting mat after being cut by my Cricut. All I did was remove the excess paper from the mat so you could see the pieces. I do recommend leaving the pieces on the mat and removing them as you glue the stacks. That makes it much easier to keep everything organized. Do be careful because there are some pieces that are not symmetrical this time. The hat is obvious but the beard you might not notice. I wanted to make it more interesting that to have it completely symmetrical this time. Also there are meant to be two stacks of both the shoes/feet and the hands (be careful there is a right hand stack and a left hand stack 3 pieces each) so there are 6 of each of those pieces.
Here is a closer pic of the pieces laid out on my work tile.
Glue the sets of pieces together into stacks like this. All the stacks have 3 pieces except the back which has 4 to make it a bit more stable. I like to use a thick tacky glue for this step, spread pretty thinly. For me this works the best for this kind of project and it seems to hold up the best over time for me also. I do recommend putting something like a paint bottle of similar on top of the larger stacks while they dry to help prevent warping.
Once the glue dries it is time to paint the pieces. I like to put the really small pieces (nose, hands and feet) onto a piece of masking tape that I have run against my jeans to make it a bit less sticky. This keeps them where I can find them when I need them.
Paint colors are up to you I kept my gnome in a pink red color scheme. Since I don’t have any flesh color paint right now I did mix that color. Here are the colors I used in the video.
Once the paint dries it is time to assemble the gnome.
I like to start with the placement of the beard since it is central to all the other pieces. It is meant to line up in the middle side to side and just a hair above the flat bottom of the back piece. Let the glue on this piece set up so you don’t move the beard around placing the other pieces around it.
Now we can add the hat to our gnome. I designed the hat to fit against the bump on the top of the gnome and to lean against the very top of that same bump. Here are a couple of views of the hat so you can hopefully understand what I mean.
Next the nose fits into the curve at the bottom of the hat right on top of the beard. Since I used the same shape to cut the curve at the bottom of the hat it should be a really nice fit.
The shoes/feet go on either side of the beard at the very bottom. Be sure to like the flat side up with the straight edge at the bottom of the back piece. Allow this glue to set up before going on.
Now we can add the heart to the front of the gnome. You can place yours where ever you wish, although there are arm bumps on the sides of the back piece to guild you. Allow this glue to set up.
Now we can add the hands to each side of the heart. There is a left and a right hand so be careful when placing them. Allow the glue to dry completely.
Now we can add a thin even coat of Satin Mod Podge (or the sealer of your choice_ and allow to dry.
Here is the gnome along with some of the other Valentine items we have made in past tutorials. I love the way everything comes together on the porch.
As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.
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