My first gnome: the story of a swap

A couple weeks ago, We Bloom Here posted an invitation for a peg-folk exchange. I've always wanted to do an online swap, but I always see the posts once it's too late. But I caught this one in time! I had already purchased a few wood peg people in the hopes of crafting my first gnome, but just didn't really know where to start.

Two of my swap recipients live in destinations that evoke the thought of the ocean and warm sandy beaches. One is in Australia, another in California. So with the help of a couple of incredibly helpful blog posts, and inspired by the ocean, I set out to make my first one this morning. Here she is:

I decided to keep her in fashion of the Waldorf gnomes and keep her faceless. I call her a She, because, for some reason, I associate the ocean with something feminine.. I just haven't found a name for her yet.

I found a very helpful tutorial HERE and the free PDF was included in the post. So just print it, cut your shapes, and your ready to start! It's just the help I needed to get started, but I'm not going to use it for the next ones... I'm more of a free handed kind of person.

First, I took a "sandy" shade of felt and wrapped her body with it.

I also hand stitched a wave in her cape. (Well, I hope it looks like that anyways ;)

For the hat, I added a "bendy" feature to it. I found the idea from this tutorial. Because I never would have thought of it myself.

And then you can do this with it, if you want to :)

If you feel inspired by my gnome, and have ideas for a name, feel free to share with me, I would love to get some of your ideas!

Now, go check out those links, take out your peg people and get crafting! ;)

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