Tutorials

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Gumnut gnomes - a christmas ornament tutorial

Early this week I took a gift of biscuits and a golden star to a friend in the Valley; while there my big girl and I admired all the pretty handmade decorations on the family tree. One of my favourites were some little gumnut gnomes ~ here is our take on them.
My big girl pretty much did it herself (she is getting too clever). I just got the stitching started sewing in the ribbon and bell. Thank you D for sharing your inspiring tree x

Ingredients list ~
you don't need much - some gumnuts (or some other seed pod) wooden beads that fit nicely for heads, a bit of felt, thread, ribbon (or similar for hanging them), a bell if you fancy and we used a hot glue gun, but craft glue will work too.
Now the little gnome hat (to be) is at the front of the picture. I don't have a pattern ~ just measure the circumference of your head bead, that is the length of the straight edge and then kinda cut a curve and pointy bit.
Sew up the no straight edge with blanket stitch - we started at the pointy edge sewing in the bell and ribbon securely first.
Then down the edge ("in neat little stitches sweetheart")
Meanwhile warm your glue gun up, stick in the bead (holes to the top and bottom; that way they are hidden in the pod and under the hat)


Finally a little bit of glue inside the edge of the hat, press it on firmly and Merry Christmas from us in Australia!


3 comments:

Linda said...

I just love these! We have similar seed pods that fall in our back yard. Caiden is running outside right now with great excitement to collect some! How lovely, thanks for sharing Shannon:)
xo
Linda

Ronnie said...

Very sweet. I wonder if i can fit a few of these cutie's in??

Cheryl said...

So darn cute! Am pinning this to my Christmas craft to do list, thanks so much for sharing! Lovely idea, lovely pictures, fun to read!