A piece or two of scrap wood, some dollar store paint, craft beads and felt are all you need to create these adorable Christmas gnomes.
My Christmas Tomte (Norwegian name) or Nisse (Danish name) has been a big hit on the blog for the past couple of years. In fact, the Instagram photo I put up has more likes than many of my building posts, so I thought I’d take a shot at making a few scrap wood gnomes and combine the tradition, cuteness and DIY in one.
Scrap wood gnomes
- scrap wood
- sandpaper
- dollar store craft paint
- craft glue
- paintbrush
- white felt
- wood craft beads
I have a garbage bin full of scrap wood, so coming up with a few pieces to play with was not an issue. The largest of these Christmas gnomes is only 6 ½” high and 3″ wide, so this is a great craft to use up those small bits you have lying around.
I carefully cut my scrap wood into triangles – this can be dangerous if your scrap wood pieces are small like mine, so please wear safety gear and be very, very careful.
I sanded my triangles smooth and then applied my dollar store craft paint in three stripes – hat, face and body.
From here, I held the white felt up against my Christmas gnomes to determine the size of the beard, mustache and eyebrows and lightly traced right onto the felt with a pencil.
Use your felt pieces to cover the lines where the colours meet and glue in place.
These craft beads are also available at the dollar store and come in varying sizes in one package so you can make your scrap wood gnomes with big or little noses. For the best adhesion, I used a piece of sandpaper to sand flat one side of the wood bead – I held the bead between two fingers, with a finger over each thread hole, and then sanded one small section. The holes on either side make perfect nostrils.
I added eyes with a black sharpie on the two little Christmas gnomes, but the big one I left without. I decided to go with blue and red, but you could go all red and make little scrap wood Santa’s or go all green for traditional elves.
If you made giant eyebrow shapes and wrapped them around the side of the head, you could tuck little yarn braids underneath to make girl gnomes.
Maybe that’s sexist? Add the braids and make your Christmas gnomes either female or male (with long hair.)
These scrap wood gnomes are about 1 ½” thick, so they will easily stand on a table or shelf, BUT if your scrap wood was thinner, you could drill a hole in the hat and hang them on your tree!
These scrap wood gnomes would make a great craft to do with the kids – after the cutting has been done. They could create a whole gnome family based on your family members. Tell me that wouldn’t have everyone giggling away?
Like this?
I’ve got a million more fun and fabulous DIY Christmas decor ideas:
Christmas card tree | Scrap wood trees | Reindeer bust | Believe blocks
Wood moose | Magazine tree | Light up marquee sign | Origami star ornaments
Christmas chair covers | Branch slice ornaments | Wooden horses | DIY Mercury glass
Wooden sled | Patchwork stars | Ugly Christmas shirts | Magnetic Christmas countdown
Mountain Christmas card display | Christmas Orb | Rustic Christmas sign | Christmas tree shelf
Time to go tuck my Christmas Tomte away on a shelf. (Merry Christmas Bro-face)
Have a great one!
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These are so cute! Last year I made 2×4 trees and a Santa cut into triangles like these. It is difficult and scary cutting the angle! There must be a safer way to cut these triangles! Maybe a jig?
I really have to learn how to make jigs – it was scary cutting. I’ll set that as a goal for 2019 so that my projects will include a jig build to protect fingers.