Sparkly Painted Pinecone Ornament

 My daycare children love to collect sticks, rocks and objects from nature.  They collected a bucket full of pinecones in the fall that I saved in our craft supply bin.

We are making handmade ornaments for our parents for Christmas this year so I thought now would be a good time to use the pinecones they collected in the fall. First we painted the pinecones with white paint to give them a ‘snowy’ appearance.

Then we left them to dry overnight.

The older children used glitter glue on the tips of the pinecones to make them sparkle.  Glitter can scratch your cornea if you rub your eyes with glitter on your fingers so I don’t let the young children use the glitter glue.

The younger children added glitter from a shaker with my supervision.  We put glue on the pinecone and then stick it in a box.  I simply cut a hole out of an old box to help contain the glitter mess. The children sprinkle the glitter container over the pinecone to create a festive looking pinecone.

I gently shook the pinecone over the box to let the excess glitter slide off. We left the pinecones for a few hours to let the glue dry.

Once the glue was dry, I tied ribbons on the pinecones and they are ready to be wrapped up for Christmas.

We are so lucky as child care providers to be surrounded by young children who hold the magic of the season close to their hearts at Christmas time.  Enjoy the wonder and excitement in their eyes as they prepare little sticky lopsided hand-made gifts for their loved ones.

* Our third ornament (salt dough shapes) will be posted on Wednesday, stay tuned.