Easy and Affordable Christmas Craft: Decorating Pinecones

Are you looking for inexpensive Christmas craft and decoration options? You don’t have to spend a lot of money to create beautiful holiday decorations if you have a little creativity and are willing to make the most of what you can find naturally in nature.

You and your family members can get hours of enjoyment from gathering pinecones and transforming them in to beautiful yet frugal Christmas decorations for your home.

Creating Pinecone Christmas Decorations

There’s certainly no shortage of pinecones anywhere that pine trees grow. If you live in a corner of the world where pinecones are plentiful, you’ll certainly be able to get your hands on plenty of no-cost crafting supplies if you choose to complete this craft project!

Rather than tossing pinecones from your yard into the trash or compost pile, why not save a few (or a lot!) of them to use to create lovely Christmas decorations as a family crafting project? All you need to do to get started is go outside and gather a few pinecones.

Even if you don’t have pine trees in your own yard, anyone you know who has these types of trees will surely be glad to let you gather what you need. As long as it’s not a violation of a local ordinance, you may even be able to gather pinecones from a park in your community.

Start gathering pinecones to use in your Christmas craft projects several weeks before you are ready to start making your holiday decorations. Bring the pinecones that you gather inside and lay them on old newspaper placed on a flat surface so they can dry thoroughly before you’re ready to begin working with them.

You’ll need a few craft supplies when it’s time to start decorating your pinecones. Depending on what type of decorations you wish to create, you may need spray paint in metallic shades like gold and silver, acrylic paint in holiday colors like red, green and metallic small paint brushes, glue, various colors glitter, ornament hooks and other supplies that you may want to use.

When you are ready to tackle your crafting project, set up a place where you and the other members of your family can work side by side and enjoy spending time together while crafting. If you plan to spray paint some of the pinecones, take them outside for painting and drying, bringing them back indoors for additional embellishment only after the paint is completely dry.

One of the best ways to create decorations from holiday pine cones is simply to place a small line of glue on the pointy tips followed by sprinkling of glitter. You can do this on natural pinecones as well as ones that have been spray-painted gold or silver. You may also want to dot red, green or metallic paint on the tips of some of your pinecones.

Using Your Decorated Pine Cones

There are several ways to incorporate embellished pinecone crafts into your holiday décor. What you can create is limited only by your imagination and the quantity of pinecones and supplies you have on hand.

Example Uses:

A few examples of what you can do with decorated pinecone decorations include:

• Homemade Ornaments -- Ornament hooks to some of your decorated pine cones. This will allow you to hang them on your tree or suspend them from holiday garland.
• Pinecone Centerpiece -- You can also arrange a selection of decorated pinecones in a glass or crystal bowl to make a lovely, virtually free holiday centerpiece.
• Plant Embellishments -- Attach florists’ picks to the bottom of some of your decorated pinecones and use them to decorate your houseplants for the holidays.
• Wreath Decorations -- Add a few decorated pinecones to a plain evergreen wreath and add a bow for a perfect door decoration.

Share Your Tips:

What ideas do you have? Share your suggestions for what to do with decorated pinecones in the comments section below!