Once in a while an SVG project comes along that you fall in love with. This month I've fallen for the Gnome Box SVG file from Simply Crafty SVGs. The gnomes are so easy to customise and I've shared my hints and ideas hoping that they will give you ideas and inspiration for your own customisations. I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the file pieces, but any digital cutter which reads SVG files should work.
Let me introduce you to the gnomes I made ...
Sign Post Gnome
Cool Dude Gnome
& Rudolph Gnome
Now for the customisations (I had such fun with these)!
1. Curl that Beard!
Use a pencil, marker, or any item with a round barrel, and curl each piece of the beard individually - this gives great texture to the beard. Consider adding a second beard on top of the first for additional volume.
2. Add Embellishments
Add items from your stash. Here I've used a ready-made white pompom and a mini pipe cleaner to make a fun embellishment for the hat on the cool gnome.
3. Add Printable Patterns
Use printable patterns to make panels for the hat and body. The Silhouette Studio software allows you to tile, rescale and rotate the pattern to suit your pattern pieces.
4. Add a Sign Post
To make a quick post for your sign use a paper straw. Trim the straw to length and squash the lower end to give a bigger surface area to adhere to the gnome's foot. Add a bead or mini pompom to the top end.
5. Make a Sign
Make a sign to add to the sign post. I used the board from the Wooden Sign file from the Silhouette Design Store. The words were cut from white, or red sign vinyl using a stencil font. Attach the sign board to the post using an adhesive foam pad (file details are linked below).
Using other elements from the sign file help to ground the sign.
6. Colour that Nose
Change out the nose for the Rudolph gnome to red card. I had cut extra pale pink noses, and recoloured one using stamping ink and a blending tool.
7. Add Accessories
Accessorise your gnomes with items from a set of photo props reduced in size to match the scale of the gnomes. I copied and flipped one of the antlers from a set and welded them to a triangular shape. Once cut from brown card they were then adhered to the rear of the Rudolph gnome's hat. This opens up all manner of variations. For example, an Easter set could be used to make the gnomes into an Easter bunny - just add ears to the hat.
From the same set I cut a set of eye glasses from white cardstock and added black cardstock behind and flooded the well with liquid glaze to make dark lenses for the cool gnome's shades.
8. Add Stripes
If you don't have striped paper in the desired colour, adapt plain panels by subtracting rectangles from the panels lined up side-by-side. Once cut, use the waste sheet as a guide to align the individual stripes plain panel pieces in a contrasting colour.
Here are the details of the materials and files I used.
Materials Used:
Medium Weight American Crafts Textured Cardstock in
White, Black, Red, Dark Grey, Pale Gray, Grass Green, & Pale Pink
Beacon 3-in-1 Adhesive
Plaid Paper or Digital Paper Pattern & Printer
Silhouette Cameo or other digital cutter
Extras for Sign Post Gnome:
Stripy Paper Straw
White Sign Vinyl
Adhesive Foam Pad
Small Red PomPom, or a Wooden Bead
Textured Cardstock in Grass Green plus assorted scraps
Extras for Cool Dude Gnome:
Nuvo Drops Clear Glaze
Small Pompom
Thin Pipe Cleaner
Extras for Rudolph Gnome:
Textured Cardstock in Brown
Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Barn Red & Blending Tool or
Textured Cardstock in Red
Files Used:
Simply Crafty SVGs Gnome
Other Digital Files:
Wooden Sign by Lisa Norris (Studio or SVG)
Christmas Photo Props by Silhouette (Studio or SVG)
PN Moneymaking Stencil Font by ScrapNfonts
Christmas Red Buffalo Check Pattern by Miss Kate Cuttables (Studio or JPG)
These gnomes are such fun to make - do try them. I'd love to see the results, so do tag me in your social media posts.
Janet, DT Member Simply Crafty SVGs
Blog: Crafting Quine
Instagram: @CraftingQuine
Facebook: Janet Packer Crafting Quine
