The Great Pinecone Wreath

So Many Pinecones!!!

I've wanted to make a pinecone wreath for literally the last three years but I kept getting deterred because I didn't want to buy the pinecones. Finally over Columbus day I went hiking with my parents and dog and found a patch of red pine trees! They give off the cute little squat pinecones... jackpot!! 

What You're Going to Need:
- A twig wreath
- Pinecones!
- White acrylic craft paint
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks
- Newspaper
- Cardinals or something else red

Step #1 - Collect Pinecones  

Just go out in the woods and pick them up! You can probably use any pinecone but I love the little squat red pine ones. I've seen some posts on pinterest where it says to bake your haul to get bugs (especially ticks) out but I didn't really care about the bugs so I just used them as they were. 

Jackpot!

I also collected some of the longer white pine cones to experiment.

Step #2 - "Frost" Your Pinecones

For this I started out putting a strip of white paint on a paper plate and rolling the pinecones through it. Eventually I figured out it was just easier to "finger paint" them by dipping my finger in the white paint and sticking it on the ends. There are many ways to do it, you'll just have to find what's easiest for you! 

I tried a couple with glitter, too, but ended up liking the white paint on them the most!

It's a little pinecone forest! The longer white pine ones really didn't come out the way I was hoping so I abandoned them. I might go back later and try dipping them to see if I can salvage them for ornaments!

Step #3 - Glue 'Em on Your Twig Wreath!

You may think there's a rhyme or reason to my gluing - there's not. I'm a big fan of "winging" it.. so I just glued and glued until they looked good. My twig wreath was a little lopsided to begin with but I just ignored it and added a few more pinecones to one side to even it out. 

The lopsided wreath prior to evening it out

Step #4 - Embellish 

Originally I got these little glitter pointsettia things from Michaels for $0.99 (pictured below). I had three on and thought that I needed more so back so Michaels I went. Then I found these little fake cardinals, and thought hey, I'll add those too. After arranging and rearranging, I couldn't get the flowers and cardinals to go in a way that I liked to I decided to abandon the flowers and just stick with the cardinals; though I'm sure it would have looked nice with just the flowers as well!

 The original glitter pointsettias. 

The ugly little cardinals I found at Michael's! But you can't tell how ugly they are from far away ;)

The Finished Project!!!

This did take me quite a long time - painting the pinecones took the longest but it was still a very fun project to do! I put a couple of those felt stick-on furniture protectors on the back to lessen scratching on my storm door. 

Hope you liked this project!!