Pine Cone Week Day #4: Ornaments & Glitter Messes

Half-way through Pine Cone Week, friends! I hope you're enjoying this week as we explore the many ways we can bring nature into our homes, namely with versatile Pine Cones.

Today I'm showing you ornaments. These are so easy, and can be painted any color to match your tree's theme or left natural if you're going for that look. Either way I think it's beautiful and adds a great natural element to your tree...because after all, they are trees, right?

This is also a two-for-one project, because I'll be showing you how to get an all-over glitter look for your pine cones, which you can use for your ornaments or however you'd like in your decor.

Warning you now, this will be a long one.

Your supplies for the ornaments:

Pine Cones--preferably ones that are more open. See examples a little further down.
Twine
(Optional: paint, glitter and spray adhesive, or other means of decorating your pine cones)

That's it. (Notice a theme here? Low-maintenance projects for the win!)

If you have these materials lying around, this project could be F-R-E-E.
Which I'm sure will make you H-A-P-P-Y.

As for me, I chose gold spray painted and red and gold glittered ornaments. My tree has a mixture of gold and red ornaments on it already as well as some family ornaments, but it needed something more.

But I wasn't going for just any type of glitterifying. A lot of times you'll see projects where just the tips of the pine cone's petals will be glittered or painted. Not for this girl.

When I want color or glitter, I tend to COMMIT. I need pine cones that appear to have been completely gilded. I need pine cones with every nook and cranny covered in glitter. Getting that all-over-gold color is easy with a trusty can of spray paint, but the glitter proves to be a little elusive and difficult.

And so, I first present to you: "How to Glitter Your Pine Cones and Make a (Minimal) Mess."

You'll need:
Fine craft glitter (I found gold glitter on clearance at Joann for $.99, and used a 40% off coupon at Michaels for the Martha Stewart fine glitter in red.)
Spray adhesive
Ziploc bags

First you'll want to dump a decent amount of each color glitter into its own ziploc bag.
Then, you'll want to hit your pine cones with a generous coating of spray adhesive. Mind the nooks and crannies.
Drop the pine cone into your bags o'glitter (and happiness).
Seal up the bag (I just hold it closed tightly with my hand), and shake shake shake.
Remove your pine cone and behold:

At this point you'll want to shake off any excess glitter (which I tried to do over the bag, and then over the trash can but STILL managed to get glitter all over the garage AND myself--hence "minimal" in the title) and allow the adhesive to dry.

Once your pine cones are dry, you can start making your ornaments.

First, you'll want to cut a length of twine that will tie onto to your pine cone but also create a big enough loop to hang on your tree. I cut my lengths of twine to about 6"-7". You can always trim off any extra.

Take your twine and tie it onto the top section of your pine cone.

Using a gold spray painted one since my glittered pine cones weren't ready to be worked with yet.

Pull it tight (gently, though!). Twine is nice in that it usually holds its knot without having to double and triple knot it (which in my opinion usually only adds bulk).

You'll want to tie a knot at the top to create a loop for your ornament and trim any excess twine so that you can hang it on your tree.

And there's your ornament:

I know the left photo is a blurry one, but it's a shot of the tree pre-pine cone. The second photo shows the addition of the pine cones to the tree, and not only is it totally not as blurry, but I think it shows how nicely the pine cones add some texture.

Depending on how involved you want to get, this project can easily take only a few minutes per ornament. I had five or six done in less than 10 minutes (using pine cones I already had on hand that were spray painted, of course). Adding the step of painting or adding glitter will add some time to your project, but the results are so worth it!

They add so much sass and sparkle. Love it.

Tomorrow we're tackling a garland au naturel. See you then!

Looking for other days of Pine Cone Week? Check them out here:
Day 1: Prepping Your Pinecones Found Outdoors for Crafting
Day 2: Gold Pine Cone Wreath
Day 3: Pine Cone Swag

Wanna see where I party? Click here for an awesome list of link parties I participate in..

Also linking up to:
Savvy Southern Style
Imparting Grace
Jennifer Rizzo