Easy Pine Cone Elf Craft

I remember collecting pine cones with my Momma and sister when I was really little. We lived in West Texas where it’s flat and not terribly pretty. My parents loved the scenery in nearby New Mexico so we spent a lot of time there. It was a short drive but we got to take in air that smelled like pine trees and has a totally different outdoor experience than what we had at home.

Pine Cone Elf

Just the other day I told my mom I needed some pine cones for a craft for here at Mom Spark and that we needed to gather some from her yard. But life got crazy with me hurting myself (don’t worry this is a never-ending thing because I’m a klutz so I’m totally cool 🙂 and my website going offline on Thanksgiving day (and still down at this point 5 days later <– ugh).

I totally forgot about the pine cones completely. But as I was ready to pull off in my dad’s borrowed truck with a trailer full of craft supplies and IKEA in the back (yay!) my Momma came running up with pine cones she gathered for my craft. Thanks Momma 🙂

So gather your pine cones be it in the forest or in the craft store and get ready to make some cutie patootie little elves. They’re simple enough that children can make them and look so sweet placed randomly throughout the house!

Supplies Needed for Pine Cone Elf

• Pine cones
• Baking sheet
• Felt
• Furry “beard” fabric
• Pom poms
• Glue gun or child-appropriate glue
• Wood heart shapes
• Paint and brush (optional)

How to Make Pine Cone Elf

First off you’ll need to clean up your pine cones. If you don’t you’ll soon learn that bugs live in these things and it can get grody pretty quick. Especially if you don’t like bugs at all.

To take care of this little problem we’re going to bake these guys in an oven set at 200° for 45 minutes to an hour. If your pine cones are very tight like this they’ll open up a bit. If they are already in the process of opening you can get them to open up all of the ways by the heat.

Be sure to keep an eye on these guys and it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you made sure your smoke alarm was working if you can’t sit there and babysit the oven all day, and I’m sure you have a life and have better things to do than watch pine cones through the oven window! I’ve truly never had a problem with this but safety is always a good thing.

First up we are going to make little gnome hats. Take a square or rectangle of felt that is a few inches large.

Run a line of glue down one side and fold over on itself to form a cone.

Trim the bottom edge to be more even.

Add a pompom to the end of the hat for purely festive reasons 🙂

Cut a small piece of furry fabric into a triangle shape.

Glue onto the pine cone using the skinny end as the “head”.

Use pliers or scissors to pull away from the spiky things at the top of the pine cone only.

Slide the hat over the pine cone and use a blob of glue at the backside to attach. Leave the front side free so that it hovers a bit over the beard. I don’t know why but this looks a lot better than gluing the hat down all around.

Paint your little wooden hearts if you’d like.

Once dry glue to the bottom of your pine cone to act as the elf’s feet.

Boom! Look at that cutie!

After setting things up I realized that Mr. Back middle elf looked like he hit the egg nog a bit hard so it was back to the drawing board for any pine cones that are wonky in shape.

If you find you have this problem first try standing your cone on a table. If it sits straight it’s golden but if it leans like crazy remove some of the petals (I have no idea what to call these things) until the bottom is more even. You will have to take away from one side more than another to even things out but it’s super easy to do and worth the effort.

What do you think? I love this simple craft and hope you do too!

Allison

A crafter since her earliest years, Allison spends a little time every day making something. She crafts, sews, paints, glues things onto other things, and is a firm believer that a life spent creating is a life worth living. Visit Allison’s blog, Dream {a Little} BIGGER.