Weeks ago, I came up with an idea to make my Christmas tree prettier than last year. I want to use natural ornaments beside the typical ornaments. There is this page I follow on facebook called Confessions of Crafty Witches and they have some great ideas that they find throughout the internet. There was this one post about making star ornaments out of cinnamon sticks! I had to do them myself and I just love them! I thought about how my Christmas tree would look with these but then I thought, something is missing.... Hmmm...Then the thought of making pinecone ornaments came into my mind. I did not know how to even make them but I had an idea in my mind. I looked through countless google pictures and none had any tutorials on how to make them.
Either way I was going to find a way to make these pinecone ornaments the way I wanted them. I went to several different stores to look for pinecones such as Michaels, Joanns, and Walmart. They all had the cinnamon smell which would have been great, but I am one of those that likes to save. I wanted free pinecones. I can be cheap sometimes haha. I made my husband go with me to several places that had pine trees and we found hundreds of them!
We had fun picking pinecones together. We got home and washed them. I did I know that pinecones close up with water. I was so upset that I made him go with me to find more the next day. We had fun again though lol. I learned pinecones will open again when they are out in the sun. I did some research online about them. Since I can be impatient I left the first ones we got outside and just brushed off all the dirt from the recent ones we found. Then I started decorating them with ribbons, berries, green leaves, felt poinsettias, and fake pine tree twigs I got from a garland at the dollar store. I just cut little pieces off the garland for the pines cones. Here is what some of them look like!
Now for a tutorial!
You will need:
Pinecones
Ribbon (different sizes)
Berries
Any greens you want to put on your pinecones
Felt if you want to make poinsettias
Pearls for the poinsettia
Bells
Or tiny ornaments
Glue Gun
Scissors
Wire Cutters
You can make these ornaments however you want to. Its up to you on how you want them. Be creative! Give it your own touch!
Step 1: Clean your pinecones of any dirt, pine needles, sap, etc. If you want to wash them with soap you can do so but you will have to put them outside in the sun for them to reopen. A friend told me you can blow dry them to open them again. I tried that but they did not open back to their original shape.
Step 2: Gather all your materials
Step 3: Cut a piece of red ribbon (I used a skinny ribbon) however size you want it to be to hang the pinecone. I cut an 2 1/2. Next make a loop and glue the ends with the glue gun. Then glue that end to the top of the pine cone
Step 4:
If using Garland: With the wire cutters cut a piece of the garland or any greens that look similar to the twigs of a pine tree or Christmas tree into small pieces. I didn't really measure how long. I just put the end of the garland on the pinecone and cut a piece that was the size I wanted. With the glue gun, glue it to the top of the pine cone. What I did make the piece into a circle and then glued it.
If using ribbon to make a bow: With a wider ribbon than the one you used for the hanger, cut 7 pieces of ribbon. I cut 1 1/4. Again make a loop and glue the ends. Now glue them on the top of the pine cone in the form of a flower.
Step 5: Here is where you get creative. You can add a piece of the garland on top of the ribbon, add berries, glittery green leaves, bells, felt poinsettias, etc. Michaels had a lot of decorative things on sale. The glittery green leaves I used were from Michaels as well as the as the berries. Each were 50 cents. For the felt poinsettias I looked up a printable stencil online, resized them to my liking, cut them and used them as a guide to cut the felt.
I hope this was easy to follow. This is my first time doing tutorials and I am not that great in giving instructions. I get many people asking me how I make my crafts and want tutorials.
Oh! and here is what my cinnamon stars look like!
Tutorial on this blog
http://rosinahuber.blogspot.com/2010/12/cinnamon-christmas-stars.html
Till then, bye!
Nayeli
