Gnome Guardian of the Creek Fairies

I'm so excited because Susan asked us to create something for our gardens this month and I am all about creating a new fairy garden...I mean, you can never have too many fairies or gnomes in your garden, can you? I found an abandoned bird feeder last month in a junk yard and installed it along my creek bed. This is going to be my summer project to create a fairy garden and I can't wait to get started!

Graphix sent me some awesome Super Sanded Shrink Film to play with and I just had to make a guardian gnome to watch over the place while the fairies slept during the day. And what better gnome than our own, What's Up Gnomie stamp set to get started with! First I stamped the images onto a sheet of the shrink film with my Stazon ink pad and had a minor oops...I didn't get the whole sun image stamped cleanly so I used my black Faber-Castell Pitt pen to re-ink the lines and used the same pens to color in my images.

After the images were colored in, I fussy cut them out and punched holes where I knew they needed to be. I used 2 different size punches, and you need to make sure you punch your holes before baking them! (Mr. Gnomie is the only one who didn't get a hole punched through 'cause I have other plans for him!)

Then it's off to watch them shrink in the oven following the directions on the packaging. I used Parchment paper to lay them on and a (Cricut) spatula to press on top of them when they came out of the oven 'cause sometimes they can curl up on you a bit. I just love how tiny they are!

Do not use utensils that you are going to eat off of, but dedicate a couple for crafting purposes.

Then I did a little prep work on them by first gessoing the back of Mr. Gnomie since I didn't want him to be translucent and sealing all of them with DecoArt Satin Varnish because they would be outside all the time and I want them to be protected.

Then the fun...I strung the tiny little flower and mushrooms with a gold bead between each one to the sun from the Fly Away stamp set.

And Mr. Gnomie got a special stand created for him by straightening out the bottom ½ of a large paper clip and gluing it to his backside with some Helmar 450 Adhesive.

Here's a picture of the Guardian Gnome and his little windchime that he hung up for the fairies to enjoy!

Would love some input of what color(s) to paint the fairy house gazebo?