How to Make Inexpensive Pine Cone Tree Ornaments

Looking for a way to decorate your tree without busting your holiday budget? Here's a craft that even the lowest budgets can handle, and that even people who don't consider themselves very "crafty" can make with ease. Pine cones are abundantly easy to find in most places and can be transformed into beautiful tree ornaments with just a few simple materials.

Materials:

Pine cones- as many as you want!

Gold or silver spray paint, or white craft paint

Silver or blue glitter (optional)

Small paint brush (if using white craft paint)

News paper

Small "screw eyes" as displayed here: http://www.doityourself.com/invt/5142781

Ribbon in holiday colors

Start by collecting a lot of pine cones at parks or natural areas. Try to get more than you need, just in case one cracks or is not coming out the way you like it. If you want your ornaments to look uniform, try to find pine cones of a similar size.

Decide how you want to decorate your pine cone. One option is to spray them all gold, or all silver. Another option that will take a little longer is to make them look "snow tipped" with white paint. This will take a bit longer as you'll need to paint the individual tip of each "shingle" on the pine cone, but it's a great look.

If you would prefer to have gold or silver pine cones, purchase a can of spray paint. Lay the pine cones on news paper in a well-ventilated area. Spray them until they are coated with color on one side. Give them an hour to dry, turn them all over and spray the other side. Allow them to dry for several hours so the paint will set.

If you want your pine cones to look snow-tipped, take your white paint and paint brush and paint the tip of each "shingle" on the cone. Do one side, and allow the paint to dry thoroughly so that you can do the other side without smearing it. To jazz it up a bit, you can lightly touch the pine cone to a bowl of glitter while the white paint is still wet so that just the very edge is coated with sparkles.

When the pine cones are dried, screw the small "screw eyes" into the top carefully. These can be found at most hardware and craft stores and are pretty inexpensive. This will give you a place to hook the ornament hanger. Alternately, you can use a clear or festive-colored push-pin, though they won't hold as well if they are tampered with a lot.

If you like, you can top off your pine cone with some pretty holiday ribbon. If your ribbon is too thick to tie around the screw-eye hook, tie it on with thread or thin wire. Add an ornament hook or ribbon loop to hang it on your tree.