I was
walking through the garden with my wee Bloom this morning and heard a
small rustling of leaves. Our attention was drawn down to the roots of a
great pine tree.
Nestled
among the roots, pine needles and fallen leaves were these two little
fellows, doing their best disguise themselves among the pinecones.
If you would like to see some pine-cone gnomes in your garden, you'll want to find some smallish pinecones and 1-inch wooden beads with 3/8th inch holes like these.
As you can see, I made a simple pattern for the hats out of newsprint... These hats are about 2 1/2 inches high.
To help the little gnomes balance, you may want to cut some feet from matching felt and glue them to the bottoms of the pine-cones. One of my pine-cones was still a little wobbly so I reinforced the felt base with a piece of cardboard (and if your pine-cones are really wobbly, you can add some weight by gluing a penny to the base...)
Then
glue your bead to the top of the pine-cone, glue the hat to the top of
the wooden bead and mittens to the ends of the pipe-cleaner arms.
Finally, if you wish, you can paint or draw little faces. For these
gnomes I used colored pencils to draw the faces, and I think it worked
out nicely. Don't you?
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Another way you can hear from me is to have a look at the right-hand sidebar of this blog, and find the widget which allows you to "follow by email." Once you've typed in your email, you will get notifications delivered directly to your inbox. I don't have access to information about who signs up for email through my blog, so there is no way I could add you to some list and send you junk-mail (not that I would ever consider doing such an annoying thing anyhow, I promise).
Thanks for visiting! Please say "hi" any time -- I love hearing from you. xo mb
These are so adorable... I love that you put them there and 'discovered' them together. So magical. x
ReplyDeleteYour pinecone gnomes turned out wonderfully :)
ReplyDeleteThese little gnomes are darling!! I always love your projects- you are so creative!!
ReplyDeleteOh Peggy, these are wonderful! I love the little mittened hands especially. I would love to overhear a conversation like that. I should think gnomes who take such care to colour coordinate their mittens and hats would be rather formal little folk :)
ReplyDeleteThey are adorable!!
ReplyDeleteSo sweet! I love the mitten detail.
ReplyDeletethese are lovely!
ReplyDeletemy little one made some last week, one was a portrait of her baby brother. i love yours, perhaps i will help her make a whole neighborhood of these!
These are darling! Will be adding this to our winter preschool crafts. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a lucky one wee Bloom is to find such treasures in the garden and to be able to overhear such conversation
ReplyDeleteThose little pinecones are so cute!! What a great idea.
ReplyDeletethese are so cute!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be out collection pine cones tomorrow for part of our winter solstice fun. Now I'm going to have to collect a few more for this! Too fun!
ReplyDeleteSo so cute!!
ReplyDeleteWhat an adorable project!! Thanks for sharing and Happy Holidays!
ReplyDeleteSo much of character has to do with the placement of facial features and hands. I suppose you're tired of me telling you how good you are. Are you? Tired of it? Snicker.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea...we have so many pine cones it's nice to have activity ideas for them!
ReplyDeleteSo cute! i love it.
ReplyDeleteAdorable!! I love it!
ReplyDelete;-)
We loved your gnomes so much we shared them in our top 5 creative ways kids can bring fall inside over at The Stir! http://thestir.cafemom.com/toddler/144615/5_creative_ways_kids_can
ReplyDeleteHow creative...thank you so much! love the story too :)
ReplyDeletemolto belli....complimenti
ReplyDeletehi, love your gnomes they are adorable-going to make some for wedding decorations in our nature forest themed wedding. Also could be used as favor ideas
ReplyDeleteHi, love the gnomes and so did my daughter! I linked you on my website if that is okay with you? www.splanade.com
ReplyDelete