How to Make a Gnome Family - No Sew Cone Gnome Family

- Hi, I'm Sarah from Ruffles and Rain Boots and today we're going to

make

easy Christmas

gnome

s out of

cone

s, and look, I started a

family

. This was a gift for someone very special who also loves

gnome

s, and if you want to do it, stick around. Make sure you like this video so I know you're here crafting with us. We're going to start by making this beautiful braided lady, and what we're going to do is just wrap some fabric around a

cone

. I used the tallest cones for this one, and all we're going to do is go halfway because we don't need a ton of fabric here.

You can see that we just eye-measured it so that it turned around and gave us a little seam allowance so we could even out the pattern or just faux hem it with a little hot glue. Then I put it in its place; I had a vertical pattern, so I wanted the center of my gnome to have, there you go, see? I wanted it to be straight from top to bottom, so I attached it with a little hot glue. You can see here, I'm going to

make

the top so it doesn't move because these cones allow it (they're just paper mache cones) and they allow some movement.

Then I just move around the cone and move things slightly into place. As you can see here, it doesn't take long, I think this whole part of the process takes about two minutes, but when you get to the end, I had a flannel fabric, so I needed to create a hem. . BI just folded it and made it that way. This is the back of my gnome, it gives it a nice vertical seam. And then to cover the bottom, what we're going to do is we're going to cut all the way around and then we're just going to fold it over.

So put some hot glue right on the bottom and then fold it into a cone. So for this gnome, I didn't cover the bottom, but I'll show you how to cover it if you want, because I wanted to stack gnomes so they could save them for the holidays, and they would be protected. Okay, once you have all that, I'll show you how to cover it if you want to cover that bottom, but we'll continue, you see, it's pretty. We'll move on to braiding. Now, listen, this is my favorite, favorite, favorite faux fur, it's called Mongolian, it has three inches long fur, it's absolutely beautiful.

If you've never cut faux fur, I'll link to a video on how to work with it, but what we're going to do is cut three strips. Now, mine were only half an inch thick, and you can see here, they're not perfect, they're not perfectly straight, there are crooked spots. If you want them to be almost perfectly straight, it's a very forgiving piece. And then I brushed mine so everything could go the same way. And then if you have a clipboard, you could totally use that. I did this two years ago and I still can't find my clipboard.

So I used a binder clip and some blue tape and made my own fastening system, bam, right there. Okay, so what we're going to do is separate each of these pieces and we're just going to braid them. Now, just like with a normal braid, you're going to make it a little thicker at the top than at the bottom. Unlike a normal braid, you will be twisting it so that the fabric backing is hidden. So if you just push it in a little bit, make sure the fur falls to one side and then make sure you brush out all the errant pieces, but then you turn it over and put it right on top.

Of the other pieces, these were surprisingly easy to make. I put it off for a long time, but I am very happy with the result. And then you're going to go down to the bottom, and if you see one of these little dangling pieces, just cut it off without cutting the faux fur and it will work perfectly fine. So let's speed this up, make little braids. And when we get to the bottom, you can see that I'm making smaller and smaller pieces. When we get to the bottom, I'm going to use a piece of tape just to hold it here for a second, so you can see I'm just using blue tape.

And then I grabbed a piece of embroidery thread. I didn't want the bows to be too pronounced, so I used a very fine piece of black embroidery floss. You can use tape if you want the braid to stand out. Well, I didn't want to. So what I did was tie it with an embroidery ribbon, turn it inside out and then tie the knots in the back. So I tied two knots in the front and two in the back. And then I just cut the ends off so they were hidden. So now after you do your second braid, they won't be even no matter how hard you try, and this is how you level them out.

So you turn it around and cut the bottom to match the other length. Regardless of how long the fabric is, your goal is to make them look like this, where they're the same height, okay? Alright, now all we're going to do, as you can probably guess, is place them. I wanted a little hangover to match my gnome dad's beard hangover, so make it however you want. But I just made sure to place them in a relatively good spot and then hot glued them on. Now here's the thing: I hot glued them together pretty securely because I had a three year old at the time I made them and I didn't want them to come off.

So I used a lot of hot glue, but for the little baby gnome, all I did was use one piece and then just tie it up a little bit, no braids or anything, it looks super cute. Well, if you've never made a gnome hat, the cone ones are super easy, you'll just take a square piece of fabric and roll it into a funnel shape. And you are going to cut it in the shape of a rounded triangle. I'll show you in a little more detail with the gnome dad, it's easier to see than on this Minky fabric.

I just gave it a rough hem on the side so I knew where to put my little gnome nose. And you can use anything for the gnome noses, wooden beads, buttons, clay beads you make, whatever you want. So this is just the bottom quarter of the hat. And now that I have it, I make sure it fits over the top of the nose. My hat will fall off. To do this, simply secure a small piece to the bottom and then remove it so you don't get glue all over the cone gnome, in case you want reversible or interchangeable hats.

And then all you're going to do is paste this. You can take this to a sewing machine, nothing stops you, I'm a little lazy. And then I use my hot glue gun. Very well, that's all. And you can see that this is 100% safe with hot glue. Just don't move until the glue dries and you can see that it has this nice, beautiful seam there. And once you put it on, when you put the hat on, I always like to put the nose on first, just because I like that soft look, but you can secure it however you want and secure it in the front and the back.

If not this is a interchangeable hat gnome. Alright, now we'll move on to the guy. So what I did was measure how long I wanted my beard to be, I cut a triangle using just a razor blade and the faux fur backing. And then I placed it. I wanted a little more pronounced mustache, so I cut a little piece out of a rectangle and then glued it right on top, so I lined up the top of the faux fur right there on my gnome, check it out. And he is covered, his butt is covered with the Minky fabric of the girl's body or with a hat.

So all of this is coordinated and we're going to do the same thing: we're going to glue our beautiful nose here and then we're going to make a fedora. So the felt hats are super easy because you don't have to do it much, you just cut a triangle or with a rounded bottom, and to cover the bottom of the gnome, you are going to trace the cone, cut a piece of felt and we glue it, ready. Now these wet gnomes are weightless, but again I wanted them to be able to stack, so that's what helped me.

Alright, once you have your hat, you simply glue the big long seams together and place it over your gnome. And for decoration, you can do whatever you want. I chose to use a berry and greenery garland for this guy, you can see it here, the mom gnome didn't get anything and the baby gnome just matches both. So what do you think? Let us know in the comments, which one is your favorite? Like this video, it helps us a lot, share this video if you think it's a really fun craft, and as always, subscribe to Ruffles and Rain Boots for more crafting fun. (upbeat music)