Christmas Present Ideas: Wine gnomes

So since we’ve started to put our minds towards presents for this years Stitching Santa and we’re also doing ourselves some advent calendars this year I thought I’d make a series of posts with some ideas/tutorials on how to make some simple christmas gifts/ stocking fillers and decorations.

The first one is a very quick and simple tutorial to make wine gnomes! I saw an image of these on Pinterest and I thought they were rather good. (I seem to have a bit of a thing for gnome decorations this year)

Supplies:

• Felt pieces (multiple colours if you want)
• Faux fur (for the beard)
• Hot melt glue gun
• Cutting mat and knife or ruler and scissors
• Bottle (for fitting)

Step 1:
Cut a piece of felt into a rectangle – I experimented a little with the sizing of this. All of the pieces I cut were 10″ long, but varied from 8″ to 10″ wide.

Cut a piece of faux fur into a triangle – I went for approx 3″ wide and 5″ long but again you can play around with this a bit.

Step 2:
Make the felt into a cone around the bottle to get the sizing. You want to try and get the front edge fairly flat to the cone, but it will bulge at the top as it isn’t glued. Then with the glue gun place a little spot of glue at the tip of the cone and fold the right hand side flap into it. This should start to create the tip.

Step 3:
Gluing the main cone
With the cone on the bottle put a line of glue on the lower left edge of the inner flap, then pull the outer flap over the inner flap and push down on the glue, you may need to remove the cone from the bottle to fully push down on the glue. This should secure the inside bit of felt so that it isn’t loose when putting the cone onto the bottle. The front most edge will still be unglued at this point.

Step 4:
Then the front flap needs to be glued down. I started by gluing a dab at the top of the flap and forming the tip of the cone, then gluing a line along the edge of the flap and rolling the cone over to push down on the the glue line. If there are any gaps that have not been glued down enough then just insert the hot glue gun into the gap, and put a little bit of glue and push the flap down.

Step 5:
You should now have a cone that fits on your bottle but the front and back are uneven. Just take the cone off the bottle and cut across the cone at the point of the shortest bit of the flap (where my ruler is) This should now give you a flat bottom edge. If you want to shape the cone a little you can make your cut shorter at the front (where the flaps cross) and longer at the back.

Step 6:
Time to attach the beard! It helps slightly to remove excess fur at the top of the beard (widest part) to help the glue adhere. Run a bead of glue along the edge. Then with the front of your cone downwards on a mat flip the beard over and position it inside the cone – try to position it a little up from the edge as the glue may splurge slightly. Then using a ruler press down on the glued edge to secure the beard. I found the glue splurged more on this step than any other so make sure not to get it on your fingers.

Step 7:
Well you’re done! Put the wine gnome on the bottle and sit back and admire it! Do wait until the glue from the beard has dried first though otherwise you might get it on the bottle!

Step 8:
Make lots in other colours for a gnome army.