Pinecone Wreath

Ok, I realize the last couple days have been all about pinecones with beaks...turkeys, owls, birds, oh my... so today let's change it up with a simple wreath made with a whole bunch of "found" pinecones (note: I may or may not have combed the neighborhood for pinecones...I have a rule to not go into anyone's yard to gather craft materials hahaha, but if it's on the sidewalk it's fair game...or if it's on a pine tree that's within grabbing distance from the sidewalk it's mine. Hopefully Mrs. Williams wasn't watching me jump for pinecones in her tree that was very very close to the sidewalk!). I actually looked at the craft store to purchase pinecones and then had a "what the heck am I thinking?" moment  and just went for a couple walks to gather them! Duh...

Since the pinecones came off the ground and trees, they are surprisingly full of creepy crawly little bugs (you don't want to know how I came to that realization...) so I read about a very easy way to stop that little problem...lay them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and pop into a 220' oven for about 20 minutes. Interestingly enough, baking them for a few minutes not only gets rid of the bugs, it also turned them different colors which made for a pretty cool wreath.

This is super easy - just wire the cones to a wire wreath form. I did a base layer of bigger cones, and then filled in spaces by hot gluing smaller pinecones and small bits of broken cones onto the wreath until I couldn't add any more! There were a couple places where I could still see the green wire, so I added a few little sticks and feathers to cover those up.

I especially love that the pinecones sort of look like flowers when I cut them in half, the one that is anchoring the bunch of feathers really looks pretty. Agree?

I'm thinking I'll lay this wreath on my round dining room table and put a large candle in the center...and then once Thanksgiving is over I'm planning to remove the feathers and spray paint the whole wreath to make it a Christmasy/wintery wreath. I'll show you how that turns out (if it turns out, I'm not very good at spray painting - once again you don't want to know - so we'll see).