Making pine cone decorations

My Christmas tree is arriving very soon, and I have started making some natural Christmas decorations to go on it.

How to make natural Christmas decorations using pine cones

This is a great way to spend an afternoon with kids as it involves paint and sticking – just supervise them as necessary! And it’s probably best to do the wiring for them.

natural christmas tree decorations - pine cones and equipment — The equipment needed for making natural pine cone Christmas tree decorations

You will need:

Natural pine cones – source them on a walk or buy online
Gold and/or white paint
PVA glue
Positionable wire
Glitter / sequins / small beads
Paintbrush
Paper – a large sheet to collect excess glitter
Kitchen scissors to cut the wire

Method – Paint the pine cones
I painted only the tips of the cones and left them to dry.

painting pine cones — Painting pine cones white or gold

Decorate the pine cones
Paint the pine cones with the glue and stand on paper to apply sprinkles. Once you have sprinkled the beads/sequins/glitter over the cone, put it away somewhere to dry, and rescue the unused sprinkles back into the container.

I like the pine cone on the left below because the small beads look like frost. The one on the right has star shaped sequins in Christmas colours. I also tried multicolour glitter.

You can choose whether to decorate natural or painted cones.

pine cones decorated — Pine cones decorated with frosty beads or star sequins.

pine cones mixed decorations — Pine cones with a mixture of decorations

decorated pine cones — Decorated pine cones

Wire up the pine cones
Take about 40cm wire and wrap it around the bottom of the cone. I used thin florists wire. Twist together, providing an arm which can be used to wrap around the Christmas tree branch (or onto a wreath or garland).