Gnomes are back! These Valentine’s Gnomes make terrific accents to decorate all your cards and scrapbook pages! Make one or all of them and put them on everything. I use a couple of them in other projects that will be posted soon, but to get all of them you need to become a patron of The Crazy Cricut Lady. See the details below.
I also designed cards for some of the St Patricks Day gnomes and they are here. They are adorable! Make sure you check those out.
This is the January 2022 Patreon Card for The Crazy Cricut Lady. The tutorial is free but to download the design you will need to first become a patreon supporter of The Crazy Cricut Lady site. This is completely separate from my site membership and does cost $1 per month. That helps me keep the rest of this site free and allows me to help pay for the site. One project per month is posted on my patreon site but you get access to all past projects when you join and help support this site. Consider joining my patreon supporters now.
What you will need
- Various scraps of cardstock in pink and other colors
- glue
- Download File (available at patreon)
Paper Selection
The colors these Valentine’s Gnomes are pink and red, of course. Be creative and use some patterned paper or maybe emboss some of the clothes for more variation. Your imagination is the only limit. The clothes and beard need to be heavier weight paper (65 lb. wt.) to make it strong enough to support the rest.
Cutting The Valentine’s Gnomes
This is a simple project to cut. You can make these gnomes as big or small as you want. The limit to keep all the parts on a normal size mat is about 16-22 inches tall for each gnome. Try making each gnome larger until all the parts fit on one regular mat. If you want to make it them smaller the limit is about 4 inches tall or the parts become too small. There are a lot of very thin and tiny parts so be careful taking them off the mats and don’t lose them.
Assembling the Valentine’s Gnomes
If you want to emboss some of the clothes, this is the time to do that. Sort the gnome parts into three separate piles before you start assembling.
For the girl gnomes, start by gluing the hair to the underside of the hat. Next, glue the hat and hair to the dress. Add the embellishments to the top gnome and the shoes and arms under the dress. Placing the arms can be tricky. Just put them where it looks good and they can hold the props. Don’t forget the noses.
For the boy gnomes, start with the beard and follow the pictures to assemble the gnomes. If you want a little more dimension to the gnomes, use foam tape between the layers of the gnome. Finally attach the embellishments each gnome.
See the pictures if you have problems. And don’t be afraid to mix and match decorations to personalize your gnomes.
And your Valentine’s Gnomes are done!
If you like making gnomes I have several others like the Easter gnome bunnies.
A Short History of Gnomes
The first known garden gnomes were produced in Germany in the early 1800s. They were made out of clay. Gnomes first appeared in gardens in England in the 1840s, and from there their popularity began to take off.
The first garden gnomes that were mass-produced also came from Germany in the 1870s. The two big names in gnome manufacturing were Philipp Griebel and August Heissner, with Heissner becoming known around the world for his gnomes.
Unfortunately, the world wars wiped out most garden gnome production in Germany, and beginning in the 1960s, the plastic gnomes we know today came on the scene. These gnomes are campy and cartoonish, and many people don’t like them.
In the 1980s, companies in the Czech Republic and Poland started to make gnomes and flooded the market with cheaper imitations of the German products.
The American company, Kimmel Gnomes, is one of the few manufacturers of clay and resin gnomes that are finished by hand and not mass-produced. People who want a gnome with some soul seek out these, which come in a variety of sizes and poses.
Taken from Love to Know