How to Make a Gnome Tree

Gnome, gnome, gnome - you've got to say it three times! So we have become a little obsessed with gnomes lately! If you've been following along on facebook or instagram, you might have seen our recent gnomes at our shows and even Jeff holding a couple of them! We even have a new gnome tee! 

I sure do love me some bearded boys! (Angea made the two that Jeff is holding, although I've made some that are similar for our shows.) 

 Our friends have said we need to make Jeff a gnome hat and others have said we should just call them "Jeff's" instead of gnomes! lol

Since then, I've been planning my outdoor Christmas displays and I decided we needed a couple of gnome trees! We went thrifting to find some items to make our gnome trees. I saw some very generic and skimpy ones at one of the big box stores, but you know us - can we make it cuter and for less? In this case, yes! 

I found two artificial trees - one for $2.99 and the other for $4.99 (it came with lights.) I picked two that had longer branches and instead of "fluffing up" the trees, I pulled all the branches down, except the very top branch.

 I found this grey sweater for a quarter. Now for the hardest part - I pulled it over the top of the tree, with one sleeve over the top branch.

 Now, just take a sharp pair of scissors and cut about where you want the gnome hat to be. I had the ribbed collar for the front of the gnome. Since I know where my trees are going and that they won't be seen from the back (after this how to), I'm not real concerned about it being perfect on the backside.

 I was outside and didn't have all my supplies nearby and I really wasn't even considering sewing the hats. I had been string lights on my other trees and of course that meant there was lots of those little twisty ties from the lights ( you know the wire ties that you take off the new lights?) Anyways, I take one of those wires and use it to "sew" the back of the sweater together. It was stiff enough to thread through the sweater and twist together, to make the hat fit better. I did trim the sweater up a little bit.

That's what the sweater looked like after making one hat. 

If you work with much greenery garlands, you know there's always a piece or two that will fall off. So I took one of those pieces and tied to the sweater cuff to close off the sleeve. I shaped the one branch that was still sticking up, to make the hat have the curve I wanted. 

 Now for a nose... I went searching for anything that would work and came back with a shatterproof Christmas ornament and simply hooked it on a branch under the hat. I saw one pretty gnome tree made with fresh greenery and they used a potato for the nose.

I added a few bells to the hat and a little more decor to make it complete. While the camper has a kitschy pink and turquoise Christmas vibe going on, the gnomes are headed to the gazebo, where there will be more traditional colors with red, white, green, and grey. 

Of course the gazebo has rustic metal containers, so the gnomes are sitting in a galvanized water cooler and on a pig feeder. 

So whatcha think? Two cute gnome trees for $8.23! That's a fifth of what I saw the store bought gnome trees for and they were skimpy.

Here's a sneak peek of the gazebo - stay tuned for the full gazebo reveal coming real soon!