This year, I made Christmas gnomes, or more specifically, the Swedish Tomtes, to give away as gifts and to add to our Christmas decor. Why? Because they are adorable! According to legend, they are supposed to be skinny, but forgive me, I want them plump!

I enjoyed it so much I decided to try my hand at a video tutorial – my very first ever! I'm self-conscious about speaking on video so I used captions instead. They’re so easy to make, you don't really need explanations anyway. If you do have questions, just post it here and I'll try my best to answer.

You can buy most everything here at a craft store or dollar store. I also posed alternative materials to keep the cost down or if you just want to craft with things you already have at home, which I'm a big fan of! Although admittedly, I already have a lot of crafting supply.

Tools we need:
- Scissors
- Glue gun
- Paper

Materials we need:
- Socks (for the body) - patterns are great, Christmas designs and fleece or fluffy ones better!
- Cloth (or fabric, for the hat and mittens) - I used fleece and I do like to use Christmassy patterns on fleece or flannel
- Fur - choose a fur fabric with long fur. I got 1/4 of a yard but that was actually way too much! I've already made four gnomes (one of which is big and went on our wreath) and I haven't even dented it that much. You can also use yarn for the beards
- Wooden beads (for the nose) - if you're a polymer clayer, you can make your own nose and make customize the size, make it bigger, so much cuter!
- Craft pipe cleaner - to be used as armature for the hats. You can also use any wires you may already have in your garage (or an old wire clothes hanger cut to size, ends bent to a "U" to avoid pointy ends hurting anybody), just be doubly, triply careful since those are harder materials and may poke out
- Doll bead filler - you can also use uncooked rice or mung beans
- Fiber fill - I imagine for smaller pieces, you can use cotton, shredded old clothes (or socks!) or better yet, old pillow stuffing
- Christmas balls, pom poms, heart charms, buttons, etc. - it's up to your imagination, we can embellish the gnome as you wish! This is a good area to use broken Christmas decor, balls that lost their hooks, you get the drift...
- Ribbons or lace - again, this is only limited by your imagination. You can use whatever you want!

Most of the video clips were sped up – it took me about 40 minutes to finish one gnome. Probably would have gone faster if I was not fiddling with the video and if my furbabe did not want LOTS of attention in between!

Music: "Jingle Bells" by Podington Bear (thank you!) SoundofPicture.com under CC-BYNC gratis license