DIY Forest Gnome Pinecone Christmas Ornaments
Instructions
Prepare Your Pinecones
- If you found your pinecones in nature (as opposed to buying them) you will want to prepare them for crafting with. Ask me how I know this (I taught a kids Christmas crafting class and had a girl scream when a bug came out of her pinecone!) Lay them on an old baking sheet and cook them at 200F for 2-3 hours. Take out of the oven and allow to cool before using.
Making Your Pinecone Ornaments
- Pick your favorite colors of paint and paint your pine cones in Christmas colors. Allow to dry.
- Once paint has dried, apply a layer of Mega Glitter Mod Podge to add a bit of sparkle. Allow to dry.
- While Mod Podge is drying, draw faces on your wood beads. You may want to draw the faces with pencil first and then fill in your lines using markers or paint pens.
- Heat up your glue gun. Make hats for your gnomes using felt and your glue gun. I've included a PNG that you can download in the material list above, that you can size to the appropriate size for your gnome and trace on felt and cut. You can also use it to cut the felt with your Cricut or Silhouette if you like.
- Add hair to the top of your wood bead head by gluing wool roving to the bead. You can also add beards if you would like! Glue the hats to the top of your gnomes head. Add a pom pom, bell or embellishment to the top of the hat if you would like.
- Use your glue gun to glue a loop of ribbon to the back of your gnome so that you can hang it from a garland or your Christmas tree!
- Add any extra embellishments you may want. I used pipe cleaners to make arms for a few of my gnomes. You could also use twigs for arms, or add pretty wings out out of felt to turn them into fairies! The possibilities are endless!
- Use your gnome pinecone ornaments to decorate for Christmas!
Notes
Feel free to make this project 100% your own! Don't have glitter Mod Podge? Use craft glue and sparkles for a similar effect or get rid of the glitter all together! Don't have wool roving? Use yarn! Don't have felt? Use acorn caps as hats instead! Let your imagination run wild for these adorable ornaments! Use pipe cleaners for arms, or go arm free instead! Or use twigs as arms! Add wings if you want to create forest fairies instead!