Stupid-Easy Pinecone Christmas Crafts
Holiday art projects for the lazy, cheap, and artistically challenged.
By Jessie Schiewe
In need of last minute holiday decor? Consider the humble pinecone.
Pinecones are actually really cool.
Much more than weird spiky wooden things, pinecones are technically the sex organs of conifer trees — a division of woody, cone-bearing plants that includes cedars, pines, redwoods, and firs.
Pinecones have imbricate structures meaning that their branches, called “scales,” overlap each other like tiles on a roof or scales on a fish.
They’re also gendered, with the male cone’s main function being to produce pollen and the female’s to bear and release seeds. It can take anywhere from six to 24 months for a female pinecone to mature, which happens when her scales open up and spill seeds unto the soil.
After giving birth, so to speak, the scales on pinecones fluctuate depending on the moisture content of the habitat — cones are open when dry, and closed when wet.
Because of this, you can tell a lot about a forest’s wildfire risk-levels by examining the condition of the fallen pinecones covering its floors.
Art for pinecones’ sake…
Even though they can sometimes be dangerous, pine cones also make for great art supplies. A versatile, easy to find, and cheap if not free-to-source medium, pinecones can be used in a number of Christmas craft projects for anyone looking to add a bit of rustic yuletide cheer to their environs.
Most pinecone-centric D.I.Y. projects require few materials and are generally manageable for all skill levels, from kids to artistically-challenged adults who can’t even draw circles.
Prepping your pinecone…
Before you start making Christmas crafts with a pinecone, you should clean it.
Why? Because they could be dirty or filled with insects and other tiny organisms you wouldn’t want in your home.
After running your pinecone under cold water, it is recommended you bake it in the oven on a tin foil-lined cookie sheet for an hour at 200 degrees.
Pinecones as fire starters…
Baking pinecones can be risky, though, because tree sap is technically flammable. Flare-ups caused by residual sap on a cone are always a possibility. Stay in the kitchen when baking pinecones and probably have a fire extinguisher on the ready.
Unless, of course, you want the pinecone to start a fire, because they’re also good for that.
Make sure they’re dry before using them as tinder to get a flame going. Their fast-burning qualities make them ideal for building blazes, and it’s also why pinecones are best for starting fires but not keeping them going. You’d need hundreds to keep a flame burning for several hours, so you’re better off using a different substance as fuel.
Still, burning pinecones smells great, even if you only throw a few in. You can even customize their scent using candle wax and essential oils, or ditch the fire altogether and just turn your pinecones into scented potpourri for your home.
Pinecones as Christmas ornaments…
Before landing on the ground, pinecones lived in trees, which makes turning them into ornaments a full-circle, if not meta, cycle. There, hanging on the branch of your Douglas fir, they’re back where they started life — they just look a lot different now.
You can paint them ombre, douse them in glitter, or glue pom-poms underneath their scales, with the main commonality being the wire or ribbon loops used to secure them to the branch. But even then there are variations, with some pinecone crafters recommending you hang the loop from the top, and others from the bottom.
Deck your halls with pinecones…
For year-round pinecone decor, you can slice them up and construct picture frames out of them. As the holidays come around, pinecone wreaths — be they spray painted gold and silver or interspersed with berry fronds and other flora — look great hung from front doors, as do pinecone garlands strung from ceilings and banisters.
Both require relatively few materials other than glue, twine, scissors, and of course pine cones.
Just make sure you have loads of cones on-hand for either of these crafts. It can take as many as 50 of them to make one wreath (depending on its size) and around 90 cones to construct a 6-foot garland.
Making pinecones cute…
Maybe you made a Thanksgiving turkey out of a pinecone as a kid, or turned one into a cow with the help of four toothpicks, sticks, or matches. If so, then you know how creative one can get when it comes to reimagining pinecones as other beings.
For a more holiday-leaning creation, you can construct miniature pinecone Christmas trees. Use needle nose pliers to pluck off scales and then glue them, from the bottom up, to a foam or papier-mâché tree form.
Pinecone elves are another great way to use the spiky plants for the holidays. To make them, you’ll need felt, thread, scissors, acrylic paint, a wooden ball, a mini bell, a hot glue gun, a paintbrush, and a smidge of effort scale and whimsy.
And, if you’re in need of a last-minute Christmas gift, pinecones might also be the answer. Although it’s not necessarily a winter wonderland trope, pinecones can be transformed into kooky and colorful long-stemmed roses, with a layer of paint and a stick as a stem.
Scissors and a hot glue gun will be your main tools for this craft project, and you can make as little or as many as you want. Construct just one and present it to your giftee betwixt your teeth like a dancer doing the tango, or stuff a bouquet of them into a vase (just make sure you weigh the container down with something heavy first).
Still haven’t found a pinecone craft that appeals to you?
Here are some more:
Succulent pinecones:
Pinecone owls:
Floating candles…with pinecones:
Knit pinecones:
(This article was originally published on Dec. 18, 2019)
JESSIE SCHIEWE IS THE EDITOR OF OK WHATEVER. SHE BELIEVES IN MERMAIDS AND THRIFT SHOPS FOR EXERCISE.
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