December the First - PineGnome Children

Do you see what I did there? I love my gnomes and I love pine cones so it seemed very natural to combine the two. 

This week's blog is not a sewing or quilting one. It is a gluing and collecting change of pace and it might be one where the children can help out a bit too. Best of all, it brings us one step closer to the big event. I know that you know which one I am talking about!

PineGnome children have, you guessed it....a pine cone body so the first thing that you need to do this week is to wrap up warm and head out into the woods with a bag. Gather yourself enough pine cones about 7cm long to make a little family of gnomie people.

These little shelf sitters are children so we don't need any gnome beards or things like that. They are a great opportunity to delve into your felt stash too. So what do we need besides pine cones?

-3cm plain wooden beads. I found mine on eBay.

-black sharpie marker

-thick grey felt

-a square of red felt

-scraps of other colours of felt for the scarves

-buttons or felt shapes, wooden shapes - whatever you think will fit the season

-hot glue gun

-Sizzix Big Shot 

-Sizzix Heart die. I used one which was just called 'Hearts' and it is a Bigz die with a 5cm heart which is the one we are after

-sandpaper

-water soluble marker

Clean your pine cones if they are sandy. Wash them in some warm water and detergent and then leave them somewhere warm until 

they are dry.

Sand the bottom flat (the bottom is actually the top when it hangs on the tree. This bit is a bit more solid and it sits better).

Remove a few of the 'petals' from the other end too and make a flat bit for the bead head to sit on....

Cut a 5cm thick felt heart using your die cutter. If you don't have one of these magical things, any heart at all will do. If your felt is not thick enough, simply laminate two pieces together with your hot glue gun.

Glue a felt heart to the bottom of your pine cone...

This will help it to sit well on the shelf. Here it is the right way up....

Next, hot glue the head into the prepared space at the top. Ignore the holes in the bead utterly. For the purposes of this argument, we are simply after a 3cm wide round thing. We are not using it as a bead.

So far, we have a little, bald person with no eyes. It is time to change that and put some clothes on him or her. Take your piece of red felt and draw an 18cm circle onto it with the water soluble marker. Cut the circle into quarters. Using one quarter at a time...

Fold the quarter in half and pin....

Now sew it up to make a cone. By the way, we have used this size circle to get the height needed. You will have to sew a couple of times to get the hat to fit the bead though. This is easy. Sew once. Fit it on the head and then sew again after finding out where the best fit is....

Trim off the excess - I promise that no one will ever know!

Now turn the hat the right way out and poke the top out with a chopstick or similar....

Now glue it to the little guy's head...

I would be willing to bet that most of us have seen this pom-pom trim at the haberdashers. Simply snip one of the little pom-poms off and hot glue it to the top of the hat....

As you can see, I have also added a couple of eyes with the black marker pen.

Funnily enough, I like him just like this too. But, he is going to get cold playing outside without a scarf so choose a felt colour and cut a strip 2.5cm x 23cm. Tie this around his neck, arranging it to make it look nice and then keep it in place with a dab of hot glue...

Choose a pretty button - a snowflake one is an obvious choice, or a felt shape or something to decorate the scarf....

And that's all there is to the PineGnome children! Make families of them and put them around the house for Christmas.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope that you have enjoyed this blog post. Don't forget my giveaway which is in full swing at the moment. You could win a fabulous package of goodies by Makower....

To enter, simply leave a comment at the bottom of this post. The winner will be chosen at random. See you next time!

Love and hugs

Debbie xxx