Make a pinecone wreath
A pinecone wreath makes a great decoration, either hanging on your door or as a centre piece on your table.
What you will need:
Around 7 pinecones
Floristry wire
Ribbon
Scissors
What you need to do:
1. Go for a walk and collect some pinecones. They can be large or small but try to collect ones that are a similar size. Fresh ones, which aren’t too wet, are best.
2. When you get your cones home, put them somewhere warm and make sure they are properly dried out before you start. The below pinecones only took a few hours left on a radiator to dry and open up.
3. Lay your seven cones in a circle on your table. Leave a gap, which is about the width of one of your pinecones, between each. You will need enough wire to go around the outside of this circle two and a half times, see photo 1 below.
4. When you have measured your wire, bend it in half.
5. Holding your wire at the bend, twist it a few times so it winds tightly round itself and leaves a small, looped, eye shape at the end, like in photo 2. The twisted part should be about 1cm long. The eye shape will be the wreath hanger and needs to be big enough to tie the other end of the wire to – but don’t do this yet.
6. Beginning at the twisted part, make your wire go between and around the scales of one of your pinecones, close to the bottom of the cone. Put it tight to the scales so it holds on. When your cone is on, twist the two pieces of wire together so they wind round themselves, like in photo 2. Remember that at the end you are going to make a loop – so the pinecones can’t be too close together. The twisted part of the wire will keep your pinecones apart, so make sure it is long enough.
7. Do the same for your remaining six pinecones. If you don’t have enough room for all seven of your cones, six or five will also work fine.
8. Once all your pinecones are on, bend the end of your wire round to the eye to make a loop. Twist the end of your wire round the inside of the eye so it holds.
9. If you have some ribbon, you could tie some in a bow just below the eye to finish your wreath off.
10. Hang up or put out your wreath for everyone to enjoy!
