I have been wanting to share these pictures and gnome house ideas with y'all for a while now. I still can't find the pictures of the gnomes themselves but will hunt them down and add them later. Also, heading to Portland for the weekend where I intend to listen to wonderful live music, eat amazing food and shop til I drop. Will be staying at my beloved Ace Hotel and hitting all my usual haunts. I intend to make a Portland post next week to fill ya in on all the places I love to visit while there and share my treasures too!
In the meantime, let me give you peek at the gnome houses. I made the first couple of these over a year ago. I made one for Jasper to keep in his room for all his varied gnome folk and I made another another for an auction. I have made them for friends kids for gifts and just made another for August's Wilderness Awareness School auction so they could raise the money they needed to currently be spending 9 days in Death Valley National Park.
Anywho, I hunt and gather, all throughout the year, from tag sales, to estate sales, to rummage sales, Christmas Nativity Sets. The barn/building part is what I use to build my gnome houses and if I can, I leave the figures behind or give them back to a thrift store when I take a load in. The Creche is so useful to attach all my gathered and dried moss and twigs to. Whenever there is a strong wind I just walk around my yard and gather as much moss and lichen covered sticks as I can. I dry them out well and then use a hot glue gun to attach these in every which way to the nativity creche and voila, a gnome house is born. On this last one I used gathered shells and glued them to the tips of sticks to make them into mushrooms. We also used found and bought feathers and one tiny fake bird. The gnomes themselves are hand sewn using wool felt, gold or silver thread, and tiny bells for the tips of their hoods. I use wool stuffing and make them in three sizes so they can be a family. Last time the kids used nuts in the shells to glue together gnomes and added acorn hats and fur collars. So cute! Also on this last one I used a tiny grapevine wreath and placed some beeswax birthday candles around and melted into it and hung it as a chandelier! So darling! My lovely friend Brooke won this one at the auction and she was thrilled.
The kids help a lot with these projects and have great ideas about how to make them magical places. Try making one with your people and let me know how it goes. Have fun!