Paint Dipped Pine Cones

Do you read Smile and Wave?  Rachel is one of my creative favorites because she's so real and approachable and fun and just living life like the rest of us, and sharing cool stuff.

Well last month she shared a paint dipped pine cone garland and the image was burned into my mind.  Must. Do!

The only problem is that living in Texas....there aren't a lot of pine cones around.   I guess that's true for many of you too.  Thankfully stores like Joanns and Home Depot carry those potent cinnamon pine cones at the holidays.  So I picked up a couple bags, left them in the car while we shopped, and immediately regretted the decision.  The fumes pounded my head!  So I left them in the garage for a week, then brought them in the house in this darling (Target) basket. And you know.....they're wonderful!  The scent is much more subtle now.

I'm rambling.

So.  Yesterday I got my pine cone on and dipped away.  And they're gorgeous.  Rustic and homemade.  Real inviting.

And suuuuper messy.  I applaud Rachel for tackling this with her kids.  I don't have the patience.

We hung them up and Lucy said they looked like a smile.
I guess that's appropriate.  Smile and Wave hello?

Want to get your mess on too?
Check out Rachel's tutorial!
And here are my added notes:
• It's messy.  Oh yea, I already said that.  I would line the entire table with wax paper or something you can throw away afterward.  And you know....you could spray paint the pine cones and it would be much cleaner.  But the dipping gives it a real homey and less-perfect look, which I love.
• Use disposable containers for dipping so you can throw them away instead of washing.  Just my own preference here.  Also, it was hard to find containers wide enough to dip the pine cones so I used bowls and they were great.
• Paint: 3 small bottles of acrylic craft paint made about 6 pinecones (acrylic paint is cheap, about 75 cents each. I wish I'd purchased more of the blue).  The gold paint turned out best. I love the way it shines in the sun!  I used a large bottle of DecorArt Elegant Finish, metallic paint from Hobby Lobby.  The white paint was an old can of wall paint that was a bit goopy.  And I regret using it because it gooped up too much on the pine cones.  They still look pretty though.
• Dipping.  It was hard to get my pine cones fully immersed in the paint, so I found that dipping the bottom and then using a spoon to drizzle and paint worked well.
• Shiny finish: If you want a bit more shine to the acrylic paint (the blue was flat/matte), spray the finished pinecones with a clear lacquer spray.  I had some wood finishing type stuff.  Worked great.

• Tying pine cones to the garland.  Okay this was the hardest part for me.  Not sure  how Rachel did it...but first I tried tying the long string of twine to each pine cone.  No good.  It was hard and difficult to space them evenly.  Next I tied small pieces of twine around the tops of each pine cone separately and then tied those strings to a longer string.  Much better.   I clipped the ends of the strings after attaching the pine cones and was able to shift them after hanging the garland so everything was even.
• The finished garland is heavy.  So keep that in mind when hanging it!  I hammered two nails into the wall (Casey loves that) and tied the twine ends around the nails.  So far, so good.

With Halloween put away and Christmas on-deck, this is the perfect understated decor for a month of Thanksgiving. 

See them when you come, see them when you go.
Just smile and wave.
Thank you Rachel!