Painted Pine Cone Holiday Decorations

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Painted pine cone holiday decorations are an easy and fun DIY idea! They’re great for a low-budget way to switch up your Christmas or winter decor. You’ll love this simple tutorial to make these colorful pine cones.

DIY Painted Pinecones
DIY Painted Pinecones

Somehow I did this project last year and never posted about it!

I think I just had a whim one day to add some color to my Christmas decorations and started dunking pine cones in paint, not even thinking about turning it into a blog post. Isn’t that weird?

Sometimes I forget that the little things I do around our house for fun are things that I should be sharing here.

Turns out pine cones are particularly cool for crafting and making — did you know you can also make pine cone fire starters? And here’s an incredibly beautiful pine cone garland that you can make with foraged cones!

Psst — if you like this idea, you’re gonna love these other holiday decor DIYs:

And be sure to sign up below for my VIP group, where I’ll send my very best holiday ideas straight to ya!

A Holiday Decor DIY That’s Practically Free

These colorful painted pine cones are a huge hit in our house! Our kiddos are fascinated by the candy colors (although you can paint yours any color you like).

But one thing that I really love is that you can make this holiday decor DIY with no budget, if you’re creative. We sourced all of our pine cones from local trees, or by asking friends who were traveling to wooded areas.

Just look for pine cones in interesting shapes and sizes, which would work with your holiday decor. I’m also always careful to only pick pine cones from the ground, as opposed to pulling them off of trees.

Then just use any paint that you have in your stash!

What You’ll need to make Painted Pine Cones

Materials

Make Time: 1 Minute per Pine Cone (Plus Drying Time, approximately 24 hours)

How to Paint Pine Cones the Easy Way

Since I didn’t think of posting it on the blog last year, I don’t have any step by step photos! But this one’s pretty simple so let me lay it out for ya.

  1. Set out a large sheet of cardboard where your pine cones can drip dry.
  2. Open your paint containers. If they’re large enough to dip your pine cones in and you don’t mind possibly getting pine cone debris in your paint, you’re good to go. If they’re too small, pour the paint into a container with a wide mouth so that you can dip.
  3. For the half-dipped pine cones (like our long white Sugar Pine cones), just hold on to one end of the cone with your hand and dip the other, submerging only halfway. Twist it around slightly in the paint to ensure that all areas get coverage. Pull it out, allow the paint to drip off into the container until the drips slow, and lay it on your cardboard to dry.
  4. For smaller pine cones that you want to fully submerge, form a piece of wire into a hook and affix it to the pine cone somewhere. Find a spot that feels nice and firm, like the wire won’t come off when you dip.
  5. Dip the pine cone and fully submerge under the paint. Repeat the process from Step 3.
  6. After a few hours of drying, we went in and flipped all of our painted pine cones over & set them in a clean spot on the cardboard. This seemed to help with the drying process and even the paint out.

Ideas for Displaying Your Painted Pine Cone HOliday Decor

Boom! Colorful painted pine cones for your mantel, your table, or any old place. Would you do bright colors, or would you stick to a more traditional holiday palette?

These painted pine cones look lovely gathered in a bowl, or filling a clear glass hurricane jar. I also use them as filler to sprinkle around our other decorations on tabletops or the mantel. You could also use them as gift toppers, or even string a few together in a garland.

Oooooh, you could also do gold! That would look pretty fab on a centerpiece at Christmas dinner. Have fun! xoxo

P.S. Here’s another classic pine cone project! And all of our Christmas DIYs for lots of inspiration.

DIY Painted Pinecones
DIY Painted Pinecones
DIY Painted Pinecones
DIY Painted Pinecones

Painted Pine Cone Holiday Decorations

Yield: Painted Pine Cones
Active Time: 5 minutes
Additional Time: 1 day
Total Time: 1 day 5 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: $5

These painted pine cone holiday decorations are easy to make and at a burst of color to your home.

Materials

  • assorted pine cones
  • drop cloth
  • paint
  • containers for dipping
  • bendable wire

Tools

  • scissors (optional)

Instructions

    1. Set out a large sheet of cardboard where your pine cones can drip dry.
    2. Open your paint containers. If they're large enough to dip your pine cones in and you don't mind possibly getting pine cone debris in your paint, you're good to go. If they're too small, pour the paint into a container with a wide mouth so that you can dip.
    3. For the half-dipped pine cones (like our long white Sugar Pine cones), just hold on to one end of the cone with your hand and dip the other, submerging only halfway. Twist it around slightly in the paint to ensure that all areas get coverage. Pull it out, allow the paint to drip off into the container until the drips slow, and lay it on your cardboard to dry.
    4. For smaller pine cones that you want to fully submerge, form a piece of wire into a hook and affix it to the pine cone somewhere. Find a spot that feels nice and firm, like the wire won't come off when you dip.
    5. Dip the pine cone and fully submerge under the paint. Repeat the process from Step 3.
    6. After a few hours of drying, we went in and flipped all of our painted pine cones over & set them in a clean spot on the cardboard. This seemed to help with the drying process and even the paint out.

Notes

These colorful painted pine cones are a huge hit in our house! Our kiddos are fascinated by the candy colors (although you can paint yours any color you like).

But one thing that I really love is that you can make this holiday decor DIY with no budget, if you're creative. We sourced all of our pine cones from local trees, or by asking friends who were traveling to wooded areas.

Just look for pine cones in interesting shapes and sizes, which would work with your holiday decor. I'm also always careful to only pick pine cones from the ground, as opposed to pulling them off of trees.

Then just use any paint that you have in your stash!

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15 Comments

  1. So creative! Love the pastel colours. I remember i painted white pinecones a few years ago and had made a huge mess in our yard ahah but they were so pretty!

    1. Thanks girl! White pinecones sound so classic and the prefect decor for the winter season! And in my opinion, making a mess is just part of the fun! ?

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