Crafting with Pine Cones: Instructions & Craft Ideas

What can children make from pine cones?

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Pine cones not only look beautiful; with their pleasant scent they radiate pure autumn joy and are perfect for crafting beautiful, seasonal decorations for your home. On your next Forest walk with your children it's therefore worth taking a close look at the ground, because here you'll find crafting materials in abundance. Choose the most beautiful or funniest pine cones – various decor and DIY ideas can be found further down on this page.

Directly to the crafting instructions

Autumn crafts with pine cones

During autumn crafting are various natural materials are used that you can collect together with your children and process further as you like. Pine cones, alongside chestnuts, are among the most popular finds. With only a few tools and supplies you can craft the cones into beautiful decorative objects for walls, windowsills, doors and tables. How about, for example, a pretty autumn wreath for the front door? Also pine cone ornaments are quick to make and will be the highlight of your cozy autumn window.

Christmas crafts with pine cones

Pine cones are not only popular crafting materials in autumn, even in the pre-Christmas season many craft ideas can be realized with the original cones. At Christmas crafts with children the pine cone is therefore very popular and offers you many creative possibilities for a festive winter decor. At Christmas, the Christ Child and St. Nicholas of course must not be missing: With a little fabric, cotton wool and glue you can make small figures out of the pine cones that you can hang on the Christmas tree hang or place in the Advent wreath place them.

Pine cones for crafting – here's where to find them

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Whether in your own garden, in the park or on the forest floor – in autumn and winter you'll find pine cones everywhere that you can use for crafting. As the leaves slowly fall from the trees in autumn, it's also the best time to collect pine cones.

No two cones are alike. Classic pine cones stand upright on the branches and are about 10-16 cm long. This type of cone never falls from the trees as a whole – the cones you find on the ground for crafting usually do not belong to the fir, but to other conifer species, which we will briefly introduce to you.

Larch cones are egg-shaped and light brown. The protruding scales of the 2-6 cm long cones offer an ideal shape to implement various DIY ideas and create beautiful objects.

Spruce cones are cylindrical and measure between 10-18 cm. Due to the smooth scales, spruce cones are ideal for crafting small figures or decorative ornaments.

You will particularly often find various pine cones in the forest. The cones of the Scots pine are dark brown to black and very firm. Because of their structure and appearance they are excellent for a variety of crafts such as wreaths, figures or for painting, since the scales open very wide when ripe. The cones of the black pine have rather horizontal scales and a conical shape. But this type of pine cone is also popular for many craft ideas and is easy to work with.

Materials you need for pine cone crafting

If you have already diligently collected pine cones for crafting, you can get started. Below you will find a small list of materials, which you need for making various crafts.

different types of pine cones
Glue or hot glue
Paints
Brushes
Googly eyes
Styrofoam or wooden balls
Yarn and wool
Wire
Feathers
Felt and fabric scraps
Scissors
Markers
Cardboard
Pom-poms
Natural materials such as acorns, chestnuts, leaves & Co.

Markers and paints

To make your pine cones shine in the most beautiful colors, you need suitable markers and paints.

Craft glue and adhesive

Glued firmly – that guarantees nothing will wobble anymore. When crafting with pine cones you need a good glue to securely and permanently attach fabric scraps, felt or other materials.

Five lovely pine cone craft ideas – crafting instructions

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During fun autumn games and during extensive autumn crafting with natural materials, children experience autumn with all their senses and can get into the coziest time of the year with you.

Depending on age and skills of your children, there are many different craft ideas that you can do together. We've gathered some of the loveliest DIY ideas for you here.

Funny pine cone hedgehog

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Materials needed

pine cones
(red) cardboard
black felt-tip pen
glue
scissors
googly eyes

Step-by-step instructions

Take the pine cone and clean it of coarse dirt. A cone with widely opened scales that resemble a hedgehog's spines works best.
Cut a red circle from the cardboard. If you're unsure about the shape, use a compass or another round object as a template and trace the shape onto the cardboard. Cut it out with scissors.
Now make a small cut on one side down to the middle so you can fold the cardboard into a cone. Spread glue on the overlapping inner side of the cardboard and stick the hedgehog face together. Let it dry for a moment until the snout holds well. If you like, cut the edge into a zig-zag or rounded shape.
Coat the tip of the pine cone with a generous amount of glue and place the cardboard cone on top. Wait a short moment until the hedgehog face is secure.
Almost done! Use the pen to draw the hedgehog's eyes and nose. Alternatively, you can stick on googly eyes – that makes the little hedgehog even funnier.

Pine cone snowman craft

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Materials needed:

two pine cones (one large and one small cone)
styrofoam ball
felt-tip pens (black and orange)
felt, fabric scraps, or wool
glue or hot glue
pompom

Step-by-step instructions

Place the two cleaned pine cones in front of you on the table. Spread adhesive on one side of the styrofoam ball and press it onto the tip of the large pine cone. It will later be the snowman's head. Tip: Hot glue will hold it even better.
Once the head is securely attached and the glue has dried, spread glue on the top side of the styrofoam ball as well and press the second, smaller pine cone onto the head — this will be the snowman's hat. Let everything dry for a while. Give the snowman two eyes, a mouth and a funny carrot nose using the felt-tip pens.
Decorate your snowman as you like with the fabric scraps — a warm scarf will keep the little fellow nice and warm. If you like, you can also knit a small scarf to put around the snowman's neck later.
Now all that's missing is a cool pompom for the hat. Glue a small pompom to the tip of the upper pine cone — and your personal frosty friend is ready.

Autumn wreath made of pine cones

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Materials needed:

many pine cones in different sizes and shapes
foam wreath form
various natural materials for decorating such as chestnuts, moss, acorns, etc.
wire for attaching
glue or hot glue

Step-by-step instructions

Choose a foam wreath form — this is the base of your autumn wreath. Clean all the natural materials.
Wrap wire around the various pine cones and other materials so you can press them into the foam. Fill your wreath as you like and arrange the materials as desired. Smaller natural materials can also simply be attached with hot glue.
If the wreath is to decorate the door later, attach a loop of wire on the back for hanging. For a table wreath you don't need a hanger.

Bird suet balls made from pine cones

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Materials needed:

several large pine cones with open scales
250 g organic coconut oil
250 g organic muesli mix without sugar or homemade seed mix
made from oats, nuts, raisins, cereal grains and sunflower seeds
200 g wholemeal flour
string
scissors
pot
wooden spoon

Step-by-step instructions

Put the coconut oil into a pot and let it melt slowly — stirring constantly. Make sure the oil does not get too hot.
Once the oil is liquid, turn off the heat, sprinkle the seed mixture into the pot and stir the mixture well.
To form a firm mass, gradually add the flour while stirring constantly.
Let the mixture cool a bit. Now it's time to fill the pine cones for your garden. Hold the cones upright over the pot and fill them using the spoon. Make sure all the scales are well filled.
Now put the pine cones in the refrigerator for a few hours so the mixture hardens. Once the cones are firm, the feast for tits and other birds is ready. Take sturdy twine and tie the suet-ball pine cones to the trees in your garden and enjoy the animal visitors that stop by.

Clever pine cone owl

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Materials needed:

pine cones
two acorn caps
glue
googly eyes or pen

Step-by-step instructions

Choose a nice pine cone that will later become the owl's body, and clean it of coarse dirt.
Two acorn caps serve as eyes. With a few drops of glue or hot glue they can be quickly attached to the cone.
If you like, paint the eyes with a pen or stick funny googly eyes into the caps — then the clever owl is ready and can be placed on the windowsill.

Frequently asked questions about crafting with pine cones

What can you make with pine cones?

Pinecones can be used to make both creative autumn decorations as well as festive winter decorations be crafted. Decorate your home with a pretty autumn wreath from pinecones or a funny pinecone hedgehog. Step-by-step craft instructions can be found on this page.

Which tree produces the best pine cones for crafting?

The term pine cone is most often used synonymously for cones of all coniferous trees. For crafting, not only the classic pine cones.cones from pines, spruces and larches are perfect for a cozy crafting afternoon.

What do you need to craft with pine cones?

First of all, you'll of course need pinecones. These can be wonderfully collected on a walk in the woods. Which other materials you need depends on what exactly you want to make. Most of the time you'll need Glue, brushes and paints as well as decorations such as Feathers, felt and fabric scraps or fun googly eyes.