I saw a pinecone garland on a magazine cover somewhere and I can’t even remember where. The point is, when I saw it I knew it was what I needed for my new fireplace mantle.  After pricing them and realizing they are literally just pine cones attached to a string I decided that my husband would think I was an idiot if I paid for something that actually grows on trees just outside our house- so I decided to just tackle the project myself (with my Mom)- DIY style.

Neiman Marcus Pinecone Garland: $65!?!?

This whole project was very “figure it out as we go.” We went into the yard to collect pinecones and got a variety of sizes. Then we took a piece of ribbon (we used 1/4 inch white cotton ribbon, though I would recommend something darker) and strung it from one side of the mantle to the other, making it the length I wanted. Then my mom and I affixed about 6 inches of 1/4 lb green florist wire to each pinecone, somewhere in the bottom 1/3 of the cone. We just wrapped the wire around a twisted it once or twice. Then I just started in the middle and one-by-one I twisted the pinecones on the ribbon- first I was meticulously alternating the direction the pinecones faced in the hopes of some organization (my crafting usually begins this way), but that method was soon abandoned in favor of a more haphazard technique.

So this process went on for a while until we had built and nice looking garland. The advantage to using the wire instead of string was that if I stood back and something wasn’t in the right place I could just twist it to where I wanted it to be. At first the garland wasn’t looking at heavy as I wanted it to, so with the wire I was just able to slide the pinecones around until they were nice and tight and round.

This was a fun way to spend an afternoon drinking coffee with my mom. I wouldn’t call it “quick” but it was certainly easy, cheap, and rewarding.