Pinecone Ornaments

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

Mistletoe Ornaments

I recently started making ornaments for our Christmas tree. This year I wanted to have a Christmas tree with pinecone ornaments, cinnamon stars, and snow ornaments. I also wanted the colors to be strictly red, green, and white. So I came across some ideas of making ornaments with snow. There were a few that caught my eye. They had red berries inside. I decided to make some of my own with my own touch. These ornaments have the snow and red berries just like the ones I saw but mine have some glittery leaves inside them and the snow has some sparkles as well. I just love how they came out. I added a little red bow to make them look cutesy. Here is what they look like.

If you would like to know how to make these I have provided a tutorial on how to make them. They are pretty easy to make! Just make sure you buy berries that are able to fit in the hole of the ornament. The berries were a little to big for the holes but I was able to push them in.  I used fake berries that I bought from Michaels for 99 cents. The leaves also cost 99 cents.

Materials you will need are:

Buffalo snow flurries
Buffalo snowflakes
Clear glass ornaments (any size you want)
Red Berries
Any greens you wish to put inside
Wire cutters
Ribbon

I bought the snow flurries and snow flakes at Joanns. The rest is from Michaels. First remove the top from the ornament and fill with snow flurries.

 

Next put some snow flakes inside. This is optional. I like sparkly things so I added the snowflakes. This can get very messy so its a good idea to use a cardboard box so that any snow flurries or snowflakes can fall in there.

Next put the leaves inside and 3 red berries. with a toothpick you can move the leaves and red berries wherever you want them to be. Now place the top back on the ornament.

Finally, you make a bow out of red ribbon or any color you want to use and glue it with a glue gun. And this is your final product!

Do the same with the other clear glass ornaments.

Now you are ready to hang your ornaments on your Christmas tree. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and thank you very much for reading my blog. Happy Holidays!

Here is my Christmas tree with the ornaments. I will post a tutorial on how to decorate pinecones and hang them up as ornaments.