Pinecone Decor

I always thank my mother for the creativity genes she shared with me. She was a stay-at-home mom and her hands were always busy crafting something… from pastries, to paper beads, to pompom poodle bottles. Today, I'll reminisce one of her favorite holiday decorations: jazzed up pinecones.

Back in those days, we would go to a Farmer's Market to buy big sacks of pinecones that were brought down from the mountains. The objective was to hang the cones on our Christmas tree, so my mom would tie each one with a ribbon. Then she would dab white glue on the tips of the cone’s flaps, sprinkle glitter on the glue, and shake off the excess glitter. Then she would add a cute bow on top and voila! Of course, by the time we were ready to hang the cones, our hands and faces would all be shimmering in green and gold glitter!

This time, it's a little different. I picked up the cones from the lawn across the pond. There's a huge pine tree out there that drops quite a bunch of rather large cones in the middle of the year. So, I've had these pinecones since April, I think.

Some of them fell with part of their stems intact, so it would be easy to tie a handle on them. Those with no stems, I drilled small holes and hot-glued twist ties to serve as their handles.

Then I used an acrylic type metallic paint to color the tips of the cone flaps "glorious gold" and "royal ruby."





Add some ribbons, gold balls, and other accessories, and we're all set.





Now all we need is the tree to hang them on.