a pinterest christmas: gold-tipped pinecone garland.

yep, this is the second project for week one of this year’s a pinterest christmas {see the first project here} – i am planning two projects per week so stay tuned for those.

today i wanted to share a fun new garland. it is definitely festive & has some sparkle {which i love!} but could be awesome to keep up year-round too!

{original pinterest link – pinecone garland}

supplies:

pinecones – i had some displayed in our living room plus my mom mailed over some from idaho – thanks!
craft paint – i used a metallic gold paint from Michael’s
glitter – {optional} i used a fine glitter by martha stewart from Michael’s
paintbrush
twine/string/ribbon – i used this twine with gold from Amazon
cardboard or a box – i recommend this to contain the glitter

this was a really simple project that i was able to complete during a crafternoon with Amanda. it was easy enough to paint the pinecones while chatting & catching up, so you could do it in front of the tv as well.

i used a small flat craft paintbrush with a small amount of gold paint to brush just the tips of the pinecone {note: amanda used a small foam craft paintbrush which worked well too}. i avoided painting the very top stem of the pinecone so that i had something to hold onto once i started painting. i started from the top of the pinecone & worked my way around the top, moving down once i had painted the tips in the top section.

if you are adding glitter, be sure to be working at a space that you don’t mind having residual glitter for a while. i used a shallow cardboard box {Amanda got it from Costco} so that i could contain most of the glitter.

i would recommend painting just two or three tips in a section near each other & then sprinkling glitter on while the paint is still damp. you don’t need a lot of paint to coat just the tips, so if you wait until all of the tips are painted, the glitter won’t stick to the section you painted first. i used a very fine glitter so the tips weren’t encrusted with glitter, but just enough stuck so that there was a shimmer.

once the pinecones are dry – i would wait at least half a day – you can string them. one of the tutorials i found on Pinterest {see here} had instructions on screwing eye hooks into the tops of each pinecone, which is definitely an option if you are up for it. i decided just to use the twine/string that i had to see if that would work. i enlisted aaron to help & he came up with a way to loop the string around the pinecone stem & another tip which worked out so well. so this is the trick: you take the string in both hands & make a loop; pull one piece of the string thru the first loop to create a second loop; place the first loop around the stem & the second loop around a tip right next to it; then gently pull the loops to close & repeat for each pinecone.

i added a garland of gold paper tassels that i had made for aaron’s birthday party {see here} though i think the pinecones are fun on their own, especially if you had a mantle.