Toddler Glitter Pinecone Ornaments

I'm feeling nostalgic. I remember hanging all of the ornaments we made at school every year onto our family Christmas tree. There were paper plate wreaths with our photos in the middle and, of course, glitter pinecones.

My cousin did this craft with her daughter last year and wrote about it on her blog here:
http://playadventures.blogspot.com/2011/12/glitter-pinecones.html
I loved the idea of shaking the pinecones in a bag of glitter (less mess!), so I decided to give it a try with Oliver.

I'm adjusting the supplies you need, based on my own experience:

Pinecones (I collected them outside with Oliver)
Plastic bags with seal closures, or tupperware with lids that snap securely
Children's glue or Mod Podge
Paint Brushes
Glitter

We purchased a pack of glitter at the dollar store. It came with five small containers like these:

As it turns out, one container would coat just a single pinecone! So, with the pack of five, we were able to make five pinecones.

Here's what you do to set up:

1. Pour your glitter into a plastic bag or tupperware.

2. Pour your glue or into bowls. At first, I mixed them with paint, like my cousin suggested. I wasn't very pleased with the results. The red glue looked pink when coated in silver glitter, and the white barely showed through. It just wasn't worth getting paint and mixing it in (in my opinion). So, save yourself that step and just pour your glue into a bowl.

3. Place some newspaper, wax paper, or paper towels on your table to protect the area from spilled glue and glitter. Then, put your kid to work!

Here's Oliver painting his pinecones:

Oliver was able to do most of the painting himself! When he was done, I used the brush to push any large globs of glue around.

We worked one at a time so the glue wouldn't dry. When he was finished with a pinecone, I placed it in our plastic baggy and sealed it. Oliver shook the dickens out of it!

I even took a video because, yeah, I take photos of videos of everything.

Here are the glitter pinecones! OK, so working clockwise, the pinecone on the far left was painted with white glue and shaken in a bag of green glitter. The next pinecone was painted in white glue and shaken in red glitter. The next pinecone was painted in red glue and shaken in silver glitter. The next pinecone was painted in plain glue (no paint) and shaken in silver glitter. The final pinecone was painted in white glue and shaken in a mixture of red glitter and cinnamon (to make it smell Christmas-y).

I used my hot glue gun to attach yarn to hang our pinecones as ornaments. That step is optional. You can display your pinecones scattered on the mantel or in a glass bowl on your dinner table.

I plan on getting some holiday gift tags to attach to the yarn so I can write Oliver's name and the year on them. We'll give one to each set of grandparents as a gift.

Here are our finished ornaments hanging from the tree:

Oliver loves them! He goes up to the tree and points out these and the cinnamon ornaments we made last week. He says, "Oh! There are the cookies! They smell good. There are the pinecones!" So, it's safe to say this project was a hit!