Happy 1st of December everyone! Only 24 sleeps ’til Christmas! It’s been great doing recipe month, but I am really pleased to get back to crafting! :)
This is our first Christmas in the house, so in the lead up to Christmas I thought I should put my imagination to work and make some ornaments for our tree. The idea of gold pinecones popped in to my head, and I couldn’t rest until I had some. My mum and I scouted all around our neighbourhood for pine-cone-bearing trees, not so easy in Australia! But we found some, and collected as many cones as we could from the ground. Then I came back with Mario, who is tall and strong, and we stripped the low hanging branches of some of their cones (feeling pretty much like felons, to tell you the truth!).
The next step was to wash the cones, to get off the sap and remove all the creepy crawlies. Pine cone sap is the stickiest thing ever, no kidding. It’s nice to get rid of it!
I soaked the pine cones in a sink full of warm water, with 2 cups of white vinegar added. Then I left them to dry in the sun. Pine cones close and open according to the temperature, which is quite cool to watch.
Once the cones were dry, I spray painted them gold with an enamel type paint, in order to preserve and protect them. I gave each cone a couple of coats.
Finally, I attached some Christmas ribbon to the tops, so we could hang them on our tree. Where there was a little stalk, I tied the ribbon around that, and otherwise I just used superglue to glue a loop of ribbon to the top of the cone.
We were both pretty pleased with the results!! Happy 24 sleeps till Christmas! :) <3
I can do that! 
I freaking love this!!! If only we had space for a Christmas tree :) x
Aww maybe you could get a mini tree and some mini pine cones? Or you could just glue a lot of pine cones together into a tree shape! haha
WOW! You are so organised! What a beautiful tree you have and the pine cones just add such a beautiful touch. I love that you could customize them to whatever theme colour you need depending on your tree. Can’t wait to see what you manage in the next 23 days :D
Thanks :D. We will have to (finally) have you guys over at some point before Christmas and watch a Christmas movie next to the tree :) xx
Reblogged this on Noddfacrafts and commented:
When I was a child my Mum brought some HUGE pine cones home from the forest. Pre-Christmas she hung them from the ceiling around the light fitting. As the room warmed up the pine cones slowly opened and released their seeds like rain showering in the lounge. Happy memories🌲
Aww that’s such a lovely memory :) I bet they smelled great too, nothing like the smell of pine at Christmas time!