How to make Gnomes out of Sticks

Here is another good Fall craft to do with your kids. They make a really cute display with your Autumn decorations.





This craft comes from the Gnome Craft Book by Thomas and Petera Berger. It's a cute little book.

Materials Required:

a branch or 2 with a diameter of at least 1 inch, a hand saw, acrylic paint, fine markers, felt for hats, wool roving or moss for beards, glue







First you want to find some branches. They need to be fairly thick. I went for a walk with my son at Bowness park which is a large park in the city. We found lots.







You then need to cut them. This is the tricky part. You need a flat base for the Gnome to stand on and you need to cut the top off at an angle to be able to paint the face in. Make a variety of sizes, this will make a nicer grouping.
















Don't worry about odd shapes or little branches they actually make you Gnomes more interesting like the two we did here.















You might want to mark off where the face will go with pencil. This helps your kids with placement.
























Now you could paint on the faces but I find this a little frustrating for my kids as they cannot control the fine paintbrush they way they want.






We use fine Micron markers, but you could try any fine marker.

You then can choose which way you want to finish them You can paint on both the beard and the hat. We used acrylic paint.

You could also glue on a bread and a hat. Here we used some moss for the beard. This is our favorite type of beard.

You then can glue on a bit of hair, we used some wool roving, but you could use wool, shredded paper, or even more moss.

We made a simple hat out of felt, measuring first how wide the brim needed to be, cutting it off to a point, and then gluing it together first.

You could also sew these hats together if you want a finished look but the glue works fine.

Glue the hat into place.

I let it open up in the back a bit so I could glue both ends to the stick. This helps keep the hat into position.

Once you get started you just can't stop.

Make a bunch!

Happy Autumn everyone! This is my favorite autumn image. It's from a postcard a supplier sent me several years ago.

Take care.

see you later,

gail