Frugal Decorating with Pine Conesby Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 17 Dec 2006 06:21 AM
While we were waiting for our agent to arrive, we walked through the woods. A family of five deer (two adults and three youngsters, just like our own family) were taking their own walk. It was a great moment. After we said goodbye to the deer, I looked around in those woods and the inspiration started flowing. Since I had already started with the cranberries, why not continue to natural theme by using pinecones? They would really warm up our current house. And, while we can't move into our new house in time for this Christmas, using pine cones would give us a definite link to all of the future holidays we will share there. The best part? Pine cones are very frugal. Have you priced ornaments and holiday decorations lately? Whew! Pine cones are free. And if you happen to live somewhere without an ample supply of pine cones, they can still be had pretty inexpensively at major craft or floral stores. I did pick up a large bag of cinnamon-scented ones for only $1.79. I learned a lot about decorating with pine cones when I lived in New England. There was hardly a house there that didn't incorporate pine cones in one way or another. Here are some of my favorite ideas for using pine cones. For a really nice window accent, I cut alternating lengths of ribbons and hung the pine cones from my curtain rod at the large window in my dining room. I choose sheer sparkly ribbons, one in a light tan and one in a light green, to match my dining room. Then I used a glue gun to hot glue one end of a ribbon to the bottom of a pine cone. I continued doing this with the alternating lengths (and colors) of ribbon until I had seven cones attached to ribbon. You may want to do more or fewer cones, depending on the size of your window. Then I simply hung the ribbon with their cones from the curtain rod. I hung them in back of the curtain, so the curtain and valance hid where the ribbon attached at the rod, and the ribbon and cones fell underneath of the valance. It is a very pretty effect. For a sparkly tree, spray paint pine cones in either silver or gold and hang on the tree. The gold looks great with burgundy ribbons on the tree for a victorian look, and the silver cones go well with blue glass ornaments (balls). For home accents, simply fill a pretty basket with cones. This is a fast and easy project, but it does give a nice warm feel to a room. I saved my cinnamon pine cones for this one. Do you have any great ideas for decorating with pine cones or other natural elements? I would love to hear your comments! Related Articles Holiday Decorating-Keep It Simple Natural Christmas Décor Part 2 Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Community Tags Decorating, Holiday, natural, pinecones Discuss this article
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As you may know from some of my other blogs, our family is in the middle of a move. We found a nice little house in a more rural area. The house comes with two acres of mostly woods. We just can't wait to move in. Well, yesterday, we drove out to the house to meet with our agent.
On the way over to the house, my husband and I discussed holiday decorating. We've haven't really gotten started, because of the move. I started doing a little bit with 
