Crafts with pine cones

[Caneel]

hello! This is my first post in the craft area.

We have pine cones raining down upon our yard and I would like to do something with them. Many different varieties with white pine making up the majority.

We have a 3 yo and I am looking for suggestions on things we could do together.

One idea I had was to make bird feeder, the peanut butter covered bird seed things.

I would also like to use the white pine cones to make a wreath as well as ornaments. Is there a method to reduce the sap?

Thanks

[notjustmamie]

Now, mind you, I haven't actually tried any of these myself, but here are some lists of ideas to get you started.

About.com pine cone crafts

Martha Stewart pine cones

Prepare pine cones for crafting

You can also google "pine cone crafts" and get a whole huge list of ideas.

[Caneel]

Oh, thank you!

Preparing the cones is exactly what I was looking for. I want to get the sap off because 1) I don't like the way it feels on my hands and 2) I don't want it dripping in the house.

Concerns about spider mites never crossed my mind. Glad to know it will get rid of them too.

I want to do a wreath and ornaments and I am thinking about garland too.

[grniys]

I know you weren't looking for pine cone project ideas so much, but when I was younger we would use pine cones for center pieces and such at holidays. We would drizzle with glue and then sprinkle glitter over. The colors would depend on the holidays. Silver & gold were used for Christmas, and you could do red at Valentine's, green at St. Patty's, pastels at Easter... red, white & blue on the 4th of July. I think I was 3 when we started doing it. It was sooo much fun! And easy, too.

[Caneel]

We were just at a restaurant tonight that had pine cone center pieces. I examined them and thougth "I could make these."

The weather is suppose to be not so frigid this weekend so time to go pine cone picking again!

[GenB]

I have been collecting pinecones from trips we take - got some beautiful ones of all sizes from N.Carolina. Also get a friend to collect these beautiful silvery small ones from their home in Fla. It is an inexpensive souvenir and DH enjoys helping. We have them in bowls all over the house.

My goal is to make a large mirror. I saw one in a magazine and it was spectacular. I want it for my dining room. An artist friend of mine thinks it would be pretty simple - rectangular glass then cut a piece of plywood into an interesting shape and place it over hte mirror (DH is handy and can figure out how to affix it.) THen cut the pinecones (as a teen we used to "bloom" them in an oven - I need to find that craft) and "layer" them on the plywood with bunch making a "crown" at the top. I'm psyched!!

OVer the holidays I took rough twine and affixed some really pretty pinecones to it (hanging like icecicles) and made a garland for our den fireplace. It was cool.

[mazajo]

I just came across this today.