Pinecone Crafts

Just outside the leisure centre where we go swimming they have several pine trees & there are always pine cones on the ground, So we end up gaining a few each week, as well as any others that are collected on walks etc. So as we have a huge collection now we decided to use some for our crafts.

We made these cute pine cone owls at Joseph's (Halloween) party, I think all his friends made at least 1 owl each. I cut ovals for the wings out of craft foam, felt & fleece & used craft foam triangles for the beaks. They are super simple just stick on the wings, beak & add some googly eyes. If you anted to hang these up tie some string or wool around the top o the pine cone, yo can then add these cute owls to your Christmas tree.

Whilst Joseph (5) was at school, Daniel (3.5) wanted to do some painting so I got out our remaining collection of pine cones & asked him to paint them to look like it had snowed. We used a mixture of white poster paint & silver glitter paint. 

 Daniel had great fun painting the pine cones (& his fingers) once done we laid them out on an old plastic bag to dry. In the past we have left them on newspaper & it has all stuck & ruined our work, using the plastic means that they just peel off. 

They looked really effective, but once dry the paint went a little grey, so next time I would use acrylic or even emulsion (if I was doing it myself). They look really great in a clear vase & I think I will hang some of them on our tree this year.

x Jo x

P.s  If you are looking for other Christmas ideas take a look at my 20+ Pre-School Christmas Crafts post or my Christmas & Winter Pintrest board.