Gnomes are those creatures who live in our garden and are known for caring for wildlife.
The costume works great for small children because of the short stature of gnomes. At the same time Halloween allows you to be anything you want including a mythical bearded garden character. For this project the directions will be for a child but are easily altered for an adult. Just make sure to add additional fabric for the adult costume.
Materials Needed:
- Red felt-1/2 yard
- Blue or Green fabric-1 yard
- Black sweat pants
- Black socks and shoes
- Mop head
- Black belt fabric
- 3-Belt buckle
- Poster board
- Scissors
- Black Marker
- Six pieces of ribbon about 12" long each
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks
- Sewing machine or needle and thread
- 1/8th yard of muslin fabric
- Duct tape
Making the Hat
- Roll the poster board into a cone shape.
- Duct tape the cone secure.
- Trim the open end making sure it is the same distance from top point to opening all the way around.
- Put the cone on your child's head and mark where the ties should go.
- Using two of your ribbon pieces, hot glue one on each side of the hat.
- Cover the hat with the felt to measure where to cut your fabric.
- Hot glue the felt in place.
- Trim away excess.
Making the Beard
- Cut apart the mop head
- Fold the muslin in half.
- Cut a piece of fabric measuring 6" wide by 4" long. Open it will be 6" by 8".
- Keep the fabric fold and from the fold taper the muslin up to the end so that it is larger in the middle and comes to a rounded point at the sides.
- While it is still folded, cut a slit about 1 inch from the top. (This is the base for the beard. The slit is to create an attached mustache. Alter the numbers in any way you need to accomodate the size of your child.
- Cut mop pieces into 3" segments.
- Beginning at the bottom of the muslin, hot glue a row of mop pieces.
- Glue a row above the bottom row and continue until the muslin is covered below the slit.
- Glue muslin pieces sideways meeting in the middle to create the mustache.
- Sew a piece of ribbon to each side to wrap over the ears and tie in back.
Making the Tunic
- Fold the green or blue fabric in half.
- Lay a sweat shirt on top of the fabric so that the shoulders align with the fold and flatten. (Make sure the sweat shirt fits the child loosely)
- Using your marker, outline the sweatshirt making sure to mark under the sleeves, the sides, bottom, cuffs and neck.
- Remove the sweatshirt and cut away fabric on the lines drawn inclding neck hole.
- Cut a slit in the neck about 6" to make sure you can get it over the child's head.
- Turn the fabric folded wrong side out and stitch up the sides and under the arms.
- Stitch one piece of ribbon on each side of the neck slit to tie the top closed.
- Beginning in the middle front, hot glue the belt fabric all the way around the tunic. Trim excess away.
- Cover a belt buckle with duct tape and hot glue to the center of the belt.
Finishing up
Add black sweat pants and black shoes and socks to complete the outfit. You can add any ornamentation that suits your gnome.
The copyright of the article Halloween Costume for Adults or Children in Crafts is owned by Mary Welling-Bonney. Permission to republish Halloween Costume for Adults or Children in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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