Christmas Ornament Craft

Just a couple days ago I had the great idea to make Christmas ornaments out of pine cones with the kids.  It was a good thought, but the only pine cones I was able to find were all closed.  And since it took my husband and my little guy hours just to round up a few closed pine cones, I had to do something!  I looked it up, and I learned that to make pine cones open up, you simply put them in the oven at a low temperature for a couple of hours.  These took a while, I baked them at 200 degrees for about 5 hours.  (Good thing we stayed home all day!).  But as a bonus, it make the house smell REALLY good!

So we waited a day, since the pine cones were so hot!  And we painted them green, and let them dry for about an hour.  I used green acrylic paint (since that's what I had at home), but you can use any kind of paint.  I also considered spray painting them, but this was more fun for the little ones.

We then glued red and green pom poms to the pine cones with white glue.  You needed lots of glue, since it seemed to seep into the pine cone. 

To hang it on the tree I just tied a red ribbon around the top.  My little guy was very excited to help hang his own ornament on the tree! Plus this whole craft only cost me $1 out of pocket for the pom poms at the Dollar Tree!!  I love inexpensive crafts with the kids!!