If you love to craft decorations for kids, Christmas is the best time. But if a cute, easy, and unique idea is your wish, this pine cone Christmas craft tutorial will help you. You shall learn to make a beautiful scene of pine cone skiers wearing scarves and elf hats spread on a snow hill surrounded by glittery trees. I think it is the best pine cone child craft ever that you can do with your bundle of joy and place on the dining table.
How To Prepare Pine cones For Crafting?
Mother Nature has not made pine cones for mad crafters like us to perform our fun works like this pie cone Christmas craft.
We always need some necessary preparation steps to make them suitable for this activity. e.i. Cleaning, Drying, and killing the bugs are some of them. It also makes them stay fresh for Christmas in many upcoming years.
So, You can see my recommendations on how to prepare pine cones for crafting for kids as follows:
Step 1: Remove the remaining leaves and needles and clean dirty spots from the cones.
Step 2: Cleaning. Mix white vinegar and hot water in a bowl. There are different expert opinions about ratios, the most common of which are 1:1, 1:2, 1 cup of vinegar to a gallon of water, etc.
However, it does not matter much to choose any. Just keep in mind that more vinegar will increase the solution’s acidity!
Then, soak all the pine cones inside for 20-30 minutes and make sure they are completely submerged. The acidic solution will kill any bug hidden inside.
Also, keep shaking the pine cones and clean the debris, too. Commonly, the pine cones close when soaked.
Step 3: Drying. Bring pine cones out and lay each on a tray with a baking sheet. Set the oven to 200-300 degrees and bring the tray to bake them. It may take a few hours to get the pinecones dry and reopen.
But after a fixed interval (maybe 30 minutes), rotate the pinecones on a tray and check if they have been overcooked. You will not prepare a dinner of pinecones but a DIY Christmas craft for kids.
Now, your pinecones are prepared for crafts.
How to Make Pine Cone Christmas Craft
It’s a pretty self-explanatory project for kids. However, below are the step-by-step instructions on how to DIY pine cone Christmas craft:
Skill Level: Everybody From Child To Adult Can Do
Materials Needed:
I bet you already have some of these things in your craft drawer:
- Pinecones
- Small Round Wooden Balls
- Pipe cleaners
- Fuzzy balls or Pompoms in 2 sizes
- Felt or pre-made tiny hats
- Unfinished wooden napkin rings (for the tree stands)
- Glue gun
- Glitter
- Small popsicle sticks
- Toothpicks
- Paint
- Permanent markers for drawing on eyes and mouth!
- Snow Roll
1. Make Pinecone Skiers
I loved those cute expressions, hats, and ski sticks. Here is how to DIY pine cone skiers:
- Take all wooden balls and draw facial details like eyes, mouth, and nose using a permanent marker. Draw different cute expressions for each.
- Sew a small elf hat using felt, or buy one. I turned square to make a red cone and sewed the ends with the needle. Then, I cut a long white strip, turned around on the bottom, and attached it with glue. Then, on the top, a small pop pom was glued. I made many in this way.
- Turn ON the glue gun and wait until the nozzle becomes hot enough.
- Take a small pine cone and glue a wooden ball to the top of the cone. It will be the skier’s head.
- Get the balls worn in those small elf hats and glue them, too.
- Take a pipe cleaner and get it worn around the bottom of the ball. It is going to be a skier’s scarf.
- Cut two small pieces of pipe cleaner and attach them on both sides to make the arms.
- Take small popsicle sticks, paint them, and attach two to the bottom of the cone. These are ski boots.
- At last, cut one-third of the tooth stick and attach the remaining to the arm’s end. These have become ski sticks.
- Do the same for the remaining skiers.
2. DIY Trees With Pinecone
- Mix clear glue with the glitter in a 1:2 ratio.
- Dip the unfinished wooden napkins in this mixture, bring them out, and remove the excess glitter solution. Keep them for drying.
- Now our tree holder is shiny.
- Take a big pine cone and decorate it with the pom poms by bluing them around.
- Now, bring and place that pine cone over the glued napkin.
- Do the same for other trees.
3. Prepare The Setting And Display
- Take the large snow roll and some objects that have different heights.
- Place the objects over a table at some distance. They will help us mimic the hilly area.
- Place the snow roll over the objects.
- Now, place your skiers and the trees where you want, and our scene will be completed.
Final Thoughts
It’s beginning to look a little bit like Christmas!
I look at the Thanksgiving -Christmas season as one cozy celebration. Sometimes, people get grumpy about doing Christmas before Thanksgiving, but my mom did it that way.
When do you start your decorating? And if you have little ones, are you planning any craft days with them?
FAQs
How Long Does Pinecone Craft Lives?
If you handle them with care and prevent them from moisture, pine cone crafts can live for years.
Can I Use Pine Cones For Crafting Without Preparing?
While you can use pine cones for crafting without preparing, experts suggest removing bug attacks, making it dry, cleaning, etc.
Leave a Reply