I love gnomes and I adore crafting them for quick and easy Christmas decor and gifts! They are super quick to put together and can add a fun touch to your holiday decorations! Plus, they are also super inexpensive to make. Follow my tutorial to make one—or several—of your own.
If you like gnomes, this craft is for you! With this tutorial, you can complete a gnome in just a few minutes! I made a sock gnome for myself, and then I made one for each of my two kids! After that, I crafted a few as Christmas gifts!
Sock Gnome Supplies
Most of the supplies for this craft are super inexpensive, including the socks, which you can pick up inexpensively, such as at dollar stores.
2-3 socks per gnome (You could use just one sock for the head and body and one for the hat, or you could fill a plain, solid-colored sock with rice and then place that filled sock into a decorative one for the gnome’s body.)
For my first sock gnome, I took a white tube sock and filled it with rice. (I found that an easy way to fill the sock is to fill a mason jar with rice and then pour it into the sock.) Before using the rice, I froze it for a week to ensure that nothing can hatch from it.
To fill a sock with rice, I simply fit the sock tightly over a rice-filled mason jar and then turned the jar upside down so the rice spilled into the sock.
I used a small elastic to twist closed the rice-filled sock. I added a bit of hot glue within the sock at the top to help seal the sock closed.
After I had a sock filled with rice and secured at the top with a little hot glue and a hair elastic, I fit a sock onto the bottom of the body of the sock gnome. I pulled the new decorative sock onto the rice-filled sock almost all the way to the top and cut off the extra bit of the new sock.
I then rolled the top of the new sock down (to have a clean edge) and hot glued it into place. (See below.)
For my first sock gnome, I twisted a small amount of the rice-filled gnome to make a nose and secured it with one of the hair elastics. (You can see a gnome with one of the those noses below.)
With my next sock gnomes, I used cute mini pom poms as noses—I got them in white, pink and red. I simply hot-glued a mini pom pom onto each gnome to serve as a nose.
Making a Gnome Hat
Once I had the body of the sock gnome completed, I chose another sock for the hat. For my first gnomes I used a whole sock for the hat. For some of my next gnomes, I cut off the socks off at the ankle. (To close the sock, I turned it inside out and knotted it and then turned it right sound out.) Some socks have the heals marked off with a separate color, and that doesn’t look so great on a hat.(So I cut off those heels.) I stuffed the top of the sock from the gnome’s body into the gnome’s hat and added a bit of Poly-fil to help fill out the hat.
I topped each gnome’s hat with a pom pom at the tip.
The last task is to hot glue some faux fur under the nose for a mustache. I found it helpful to first put a dab of hot glue under the nose before attaching the beard. I then add extra hot glue underneath the beard to secure it.
I found it quite easy to craft these sock gnomes—one night I made three of them in just an hour!
I made my second batch of sock gnomes a little bit differently than the others. I stopped using an extra white sock to hold the rice. (I just used one decorative sock for the body, and one for the hat.) I ran out of frozen rice, so for some gnomes, I used a few glass gems from the dollar store to add weight and some Poly-fil to fill out the bodies of the gnomes.
Each method has its pluses—the sock gnomes made mostly out of rice have a nice shape and stand more easily. Meanwhile, Ihe sock gnomes that are mostly filled with Poly-fil are nice and soft
I hot glued some wooden decorative elements to some of my gnomes’ hats for a fun look.
Fun Holiday & Christmas Craft for the Kids
Sock gnomes are a really fun project. You could make sock gnomes for New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Fourth of July—you name it! I am looking forward to making New Year’s and Valentine’s Day gnomes! I haven’t made any female gnomes—I will have to have to design some!
So darn cute, Lauren! I love your ‘gnomes’ line of ornaments and socks!
Carrie
curlycraftymom.com