Gilded Pinecones! Holiday Decorating on the Cheap

Lately I have been seeing pine cones and acorns for sale. FOR SALE. PEOPLE, we can't get rid of these things, they are a nuisance, and someone is paying $8 for 10 of them?? Anyway, I decided to try my hand at making some gold pine cones of my own! Brett and I took Lolly for a walk and picked up some pinecones of two different types: white pine and Virginia pine. When we picked them up, some of them were closed because it was cold, so I put them on a cookie sheet in the house for a week to let them open.

Then I picked up some metallic paint from the craft section of Walmart--I picked gold because my dining room has warm tones, but silver would work as well, and so would flocking them to look like they are covered in snow.


Here they are being sprayed on my front stoop on a cut up paper bag:

And here they are as my Thanksgiving centerpiece! Add a red or green velvet ribbon rather than this one, and viola! Christmas. Add an orange one and viola! Halloween.

I arranged them around a candle in the center of my hurricane glass, making sure the flame would not be near any of the flammable pinecones of course!



Then I cut out some metallic scrapbook paper and made place cards for each guest. I propped each placecard up with one of the smaller pinecones to tie it in with the centerpiece.


Here is a closeup:

Just for the sake of full disclosure, I DID try this with acorns, and they SPROUTED ROOTS!!! Anyone know how to prevent that from happening?? Anyhoo, I got about 20 gold pinecones for the price of the spray paint, so eat that, big box decor store!