The Christmas Gnomes I Started Making and Cannot Seem to Stop

Gnomes arrived in our house uninvited.

That sounds more dramatic than it is. What happened was that Zina gave Maria a small felt one she’d found somewhere, and Maria put it on the bookshelf, and then the following year Marina decided she wanted one too, and somewhere in the process of making Marina’s gnome I started looking at all the different versions you could make and fell into a rabbit hole I didn’t entirely expect.

Gnomes, it turns out, are one of the best Christmas crafts to make. Not because they’re easy — some of them are, some of them aren’t — but because the basic formula is so forgiving. A hat, a nose, a beard. You can make that from almost anything. Sock, yarn, felt, pinecone, mop head, scrap wood. Every material gives you a completely different result and all of them look like they belong at Christmas.

Here are the ten I think are worth your time, with the ones most people ask about answered as honestly as I can.

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The Basic Gnome Formula!

Every gnome on this list follows the same three-part structure. Once you understand it, you can adapt any of the ideas here to whatever materials you have.

Part	What it does	Typical material
Hat	Tall, pointed. Usually 2/3 of the gnome’s total height	Felt, fabric, sock, cardboard cone
Nose	The personality. Slightly oversized reads best	Wooden be