Easy Halloween Gnome DIY

Gnomes can be very easy, and inexpensive to make, and there are a lot of different ways you can make a gnome. The way I am going to show you today, all you will need is a few items from the Dollar Tree and a glue gun. 

Another thing nice about this craft is you can easily change out the gnome hat for each holiday or season with different fabric.  I used Halloween fabric for this tutorial, but Dollar Tree has so many cute patterns available throughout the entire year.  

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The items you will need are: 

• Dollar Tree styrofoam craft pumpkin  - they are  available in orange, white and black in store and online.  You can currently buy the orange and white pumpkin in smaller quantities of only 4 on their website.  Another cool thing is when you order online, you can often have your order shipped free to your local store.

string mop head

• Crafters Square fabric cuts -  you probably wont need to buy this in bulk, but you can see some of the fun Halloween prints available this year with the link.

• wooden beads - Dollar Tree has beads available in all shapes in sizes that would be great for gnome noses. 

• floral foam styrofoam cone - they are currently available online in small quantities of 4.

• Crafters Square glue sticks

The first thing I like to start with when making my gnomes is the beard.  You will need to pull out 16 strands from the mop and lay them on a flat surface, 

Cut each strand in four pieces.  The easiest way to do that evenly is to cut the strand in half, and then cut each half into half.  You should end up with 64 pieces each about 4 inches long. 

With your glue gun start gluing the pieces at the top of the pumpkin. The strands will be longer than the pumpkin. Glue them as close together as you can if you do not want the pumpkin to show underneath. 

Continue gluing on strands until they cover the half of the pumpkin.  

After you have all the strands attached to the pumpkin, the next step is to pull out the stem.  The reason why you want to remove the stem is so the cone will lay flat on the pumpkin in the next step.

Glue the cones on the top of the pumpkins. 

 After the cone is in place it is time to make the hat.  Fold the fabric into a triangle shape, and cut to the size you would like for your gnome.  The smaller the triangle, the smaller the hat.  I made mine a little bit on the bigger side.  

With  the right side of the fabric on the inside, glue the edges of the flat side of the triangle together.  (you can also sew this edge if you do not want to use glue). Once the glue has cooled, turn the fabric right side out.  

Place the hat over the cone and adjust it so it looks something like this.  You can glue the hat in place, but if you plan on changing out the hat for different seasons, you may want to use a small push pins to hold it place. Once you have the hat in place, glue on the nose.    I named this gnome Trick because I used the fabric with scary jack-o-lanterns. 

I named this gnome Treat because of the candy corn on his hat. 

Trick and Treat