Check out our tutorial and learn how to make adorable little felt gnome ornaments. You can use the ornaments to decorate your house for the Holidays or proudly display them anytime of the year.

Materials needed: 

To make one felt gnome ornament, you will need:

– A little piece of felt for the hat (about 3″x4″).
– A little piece of pipe cleaner for the beard and a full strand of pipe cleaner for the body.
– A small, 15mm spun cotton ball for the gnome’s head
– A little piece of string for the hanging loop.
– A pair of wire cutters and a pair of pliers.
– A pair of good scissors.
– Needle and thread (or a sewing machine if you have one).
– A black ball pen to draw the face.
– A small piece of cardboard to make the hat template.

Step by step directions: 

1. Prepare the felt hat

1. Start with the hat template. On a piece of cardboard, draw an 8″ diameter circle and cut out a pie wedge about 45º. When done, cut off the tip as in the picture below.

2. Outline your template on a piece of felt and cut along the outline. You now have a felt cone.

3. Prepare a hanging loop: make a loop with a piece of string and tie a knot. Trim the excess.

4. Place the string loop onto the felt cone and make sure the knotted end sticks out from the top.

5. Fold your felt cone onto it self and sew the two edges together with very short stitches (important).

6. Turn the hat inside out. You can use a pencil or a bamboo skewer to help. If you have done everything right, the knot is now in the hat.

2. Work on the face and the beard

1. With a pair of scissors cut the bottom of the hat at a beveled angle. To find out where to cut, insert a ball in the hat. The point where the ball cannot be pushed down anymore is where the hat needs to be cut.

2. Wrap the ball with the piece of pipe cleaner. Twist the pipe cleaner a few times to lock the ball into place. When you are done, gather the two strands together.

3. Pour a generous amount of glue in the hat and insert the ball into the hat. Make sure the two strands of pipe cleaner make contact with the glue.

4. Draw the eyes and the mouth of the gnome with the ball pen. You could display the gnomes as is or continue with the next step and add a pipe cleaner body.

3. Add a pipe cleaner body.

To fashion the pipe cleaner body, you can check out our tutorial “how to make pipe cleaner animals“.

You are done :)

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I hope you are motivated to get started with your own felt gnome ornaments. Happy crafting and as always, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to get in touch.

Check out our tutorial and learn how to make these cute little farm animal cupcake toppers all dressed up with spooky witch hats.

1. Make the farm animal toppers.

All the steps and materials to make the toppers are detailed in our previous tutorial: how to make farm animal cupcake toppers.

2. Make the witch hats.

You will only need a few materials:

• black felt
• a pair of scissors
• a tube of white tacky glue.
• binder clips.

Step 1: Start with the top part of the hat (the cone). Cut out a “quarter pie” shape in a piece of felt. It doesn’t have to be perfect as witch hats are never perfect anyway.

Step 2: Pour a bead of glue along the edge of your cutout.

Step 3: Roll your quarter pie shape into a cone. Use two binder clips to hold the seam shut for 5-10 minutes (until the glue is dry).

Step 4: In a different piece of felt, cut out a doughnut shape. The center hole of the doughnut needs to be slightly smaller than the base of the cone. Then cut out 2 holes in your doughnut to accommodate the ears.

Step 5: Position the felt doughnut on your farm animal topper head.

Step 6: Pour a bead of glue around the inner rim of the doughnut.

Step 7: Gently cover the doughnut with the cone. Let the glue dry until it becomes transparent.

YOU ARE DONE!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that you found some inspiration. As always, do not hesitate to ask your questions in the comment section below. Happy crafting and Happy Halloween!

Check out our tutorial and learn how you can make a lightweight and comfortable paper bead necklace from ø 15 mm spun cotton balls.

Paper Bead Necklace – project materials

– ø 15 mm Spun cotton balls.

– Strong black thread and a needle.

– Acrylic Paint and a paint brush.

– Two pairs of pliers.

– A clasp mechanism such as the one pictured below:

Step by step tutorial

Step 1: Paint all the beads.

The beads are easier to paint if you mount them on sticks, toothpicks and bamboo skewers work great.

Step 2: Prepare your necklace line.

Make the line at least 6 inches longer than the desired length of your necklace because the knots will shorten the line and also because you need enough thread at the end to tie your last knot comfortably.

Double our quadruple your line to make it stronger.

Your line should look like the one in the picture below. Notice there are two knots on one side.

Cut off the excess thread.

Step 3: Thread the first bead.

Insert the needle into the pre-existing hole, and exit on the other side. Slide the ball until it covers knot #2 and tie a third knot just next to it.

Step 4: Thread the other beads.

For tall the other beads, insert the needle from the opposite end and exit from the pre-existing hole (like in the picture below). After each bead, tie a new knot to secure them into place.

Step 5: The last bead.

When you thread your last bead, you should be left with at least 3 to 4 ” of line. At this point, cut the end of the loop to free up your needle and create a new loop by tying a new knot just next to the last bead. Trim the excess thread.

Step 6: Attach the clasp.

With two pairs of pliers, one in each hand, open the clasp rings and attach them to the thread loops. Close up the clasp rings.

YOU ARE DONE :)

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and as always, do not hesitate to comment below if you have any questions. For more DIY necklace projects, you can also check out our other tutorial : how to make a fabric covered bead necklace.

Follow our simple tutorial and learn how you can make these farm animal cupcake toppers from ø 30mm spun cotton balls.

Farm Animal Cupcake Toppers – Materials

– ø 30 mm Spun cotton balls

– Paint. Any paint that works on paper will also work on spun cotton balls. We used regular acrylic paint.

– White card stock paper

– Brushes, toothpicks (or bamboo skewers), tacky glue, a pencil, and a cotton ball for the sheep’s hair doe.

Step by step tutorial directions

1- Begin with painting the balls with solid colors. It’s easier to paint them on a stick. It also makes resting them while they dry very convenient.

2- Paint your card stock paper on both sides. Once dry, cut out the ears, snouts, beaks and rooster comb.

3- Glue the ears, snouts, beaks and rooster comb to their respective animal heads.

4- Once the glue is dry, pencil the location of the eyes and dab with black paint (we used a wood skewer dipped in black paint).

5- Add the last details: paint the sheep snout and give him a little cotton hair doe, paint the ears an nostrils.

You are done :)

We hope you have fun and as usual don’t hesitate to send us your questions. Happy crafting!

In this tutorial, learn how you can make flower stamens from small size spun cotton balls. You can use these faux stamens to make artificial flowers such as paper flowers or fabric flowers.

paper flower stamens – the basic technique

1. Grab a 15mm small spun cotton ball (you can also use smaller size balls).

2. Pour a little glue into the hole.

3. Insert a flower stem wire and wait a few seconds until the glue solidifies.

You are already done :)

Adding color or glitter

You can paint spun cotton balls with acrylic paint to make colored stamens.

You can also add glitter to the stamens by dipping the balls directly into glittered mod podge. Another way of adding glitter would be to brush the balls with tacky glue and sprinkle glitter over the glue. The tacky glue will harden to a clear finish and let the glitter shine.

Tips and tricks

You can use a small spun cotton egg instead of a spun cotton ball for a pointier style stamen.

You do not necessarily need to paint or glitter the stamens. The artificial flower can still look beautiful with an unpainted stamen.

If you do no have any floral wire to make the stems you can use bamboo skewer sticks for a modern minimalist look.

From paper stamens to faux flowers

Here are a few faux flowers fashioned with spun cotton balls stamen.

If you would like to learn to make your own artificial flowers, you can check out our tutorial: how to make paper flowers.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. As always, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to get in touch via the comments section below. Happy crafting!