As G started feeling better he wants to do something! A has been on the couch feeling blech with the cold bug he finally succumbed to, and so it has been just me & G. We decided to do something simple that had a bunch of little steps with breaks in between. It is the most simple craft - but is always fun to do and looks great on a tree or to embellish gift packages.
Last year we picked up a garbage bag full of pine cones at the local tree farm, and I still have a bunch left. So we picked through the bag to select just the right pine cones. G settled on a few of two different types.
We started by painting a base color. This is easiest when the paint is watery - so we mixed acrylic craft paint and water until it was a little runny (2 part acrylic to 1 part water or so - depending on the type of paint you start with) and stirred it in a bowl. G then placed each pine cone in the paint and turned it and brushed over it and coated the whole thing. I held it over the bowl a minute to drip a little excess off, and then we put them on freezer paper to dry. I turned them a few times so that the paint would dry on all sides more evenly.
Next, we put some craft glue in a bowl and G used a paint brush to brush glue on the pine cones. I had bowls of glitter nearby, and as he finished brushing the glue, he then rolled each pine cone in the glitter and put it on a clean sheet of freezer paper to dry.
Once dry, we took a little wire to make a loop at the top and then strung ribbon through it to make a hanger.
We chose a simple red/white color scheme - but you can paint them as many colors as you like - and have a rainbow of glittery pine cones. Super simple and lovely to look at!
If you want to put these outside you might want to coat with a little acrylic varnish.
