Pine Cone Christmas Decor

The time has arrived for Christmas decorating. Boy, it feels like I just took my decorations down a few months ago. Wait a minute, I DID just take my decorations down a few months ago!

No, I'm not quite that bad, but I did keep them up until probably late spring. Hey, we leave ours up until February 2, the Feast of the Purification, and by then I was eight months pregnant. Give a girl a break! We got the tree down before the baby came, just not the rest. ;-)

Anyway, I want to do a better job this year, so I'm making plans. Problem is, my empty wallet isn't agreeable to my plans! So as usual, I am coming up with some low cost/no cost decorating ideas, and I'll share them as I find them. And first on my list: pine cones.

Pine cones are an ideal Christmas decoration, as most people can scrounge them for free. I filled baskets with them last year, and arranged them artistically on shelves and around our Nativity scene. I also tied ribbon to them and used them as ornaments on our sparsely decorated tree. You could also hang them along the top of window treatments, dangle a bouquet of them topped with a bow from an archway, use a styrofoam cone and hot glue pine cones to it to make a pine cone tree, or find a way to string them together to make pine cone garland or swags. You can also paint them in gold paint, or roll them in glue and dip in glitter, if you want the mess (yikes). Just google "pine cone Christmas decoration" and you'll come up with many ideas.

Now, if you don't have pine trees, where do you get them? Ask a neighbor, friend, or family member who has pine trees. Or collect them from a local park or a state park. Don't trespass on private property, and find out first if it's okay to take pine cones off of public trees (I can't help you with that one). If it isn't, pick clean ones off the ground...I wouldn't think that would be a problem. Take the nice ones and leave the ugly ones to go to seed. You can also buy them at craft stores, but they won't be cheap. I got a dozen from Walmart for about $3. They were cinnamon scented, which I loved...for two days. Then the scent was gone. Don't waste your money on scented pine cones.

The craft ideas for pine cones is limited only by your imagination...pine cone Santas, snowmen, wreaths, firestarters, you name it. You don't need a lot of money to make a home pretty for Christmas.

Happy decorating!