For the love of pinecones
The love of pinecones runs deep. I remember one time when I was young we were moving and a family friend was carrying a box labeled “Pinecones”, to which the friend stated, “Really?!....I’m carrying, and you’re moving a box of pinecones?”. He clearly didn’t understand. I’m sure the kinds of things you’d find boxed up at my house would be of the same sort. Seriously, the possibilities are endless with what you can do with these little babies.
Here’s just a couple things the kids and I have done lately with our little backyard treasures.
I stumbled upon the blog Shindig Parties To-Go where I found these FREE printable Thanksgiving table decorations (scroll down on the left side of the site), and just tweaked the craft a little (since the original is a crayon holder….a very clever idea for the Thanksgiving table setting….just not the craft idea I had in mind). So we had fun creating “feathers” with bent pipe cleaners and shoving them into the pinecone. This was something that both my 2 and 4 yr old could do and actually enjoyed doing. I guess it should be noted that I did the cutting and glueing (since it needed hot-glue), but the feather part was entertaining enough that it held their interest.
I googled and searched Pinterest for a cute (but not too fussy or frilly:) pinecone ornament idea. I couldn’t find anything I liked and realized that what I really just wanted to do was this.
And so the kids and I worked a little on this today.
It’s really so simple, I know…I’m not kidding myself on that one! You just take some ribbon, lace, strips of fabric..whatever your little heart desires, and tie them around the tip of a pinecone. Then tie a double knot at the top and you’ve got yourself a little homemade ornament with rustic elegance, (...yeah…don’t bother trying to explain rustic elegance to your husband. It will go no where.)
Here’s our little pile so far.
I like the hodge-podge look, but clearly you could keep a theme or color coordinate to your liking. Now that you’re hankering to do a pinecone project, I invite you all to come gather them from our backyard! 
