Two Gift Ideas. One Post.

 The ladies Bible Study Group made ornaments to be given to the children after the Christmas Program.  This has been done by the seniors or some group within the church for many years now.  This year we were pressed for time and resources so we made pine cone ornaments.  I love the look and decided to make some for our tree this year rather than pull out all of the other ornament boxes.  

Even better this would be stash busting.  I had the leftover paint I bought for the kids ornaments and I knew I had a huge peach basket full of pine cones in the garage.  They used to sit on the fireplace in the winter time.  Amazingly enough, I did have a basket of them.  And even more amazingly, I FOUND the basket right where I looked the first time!.  AND it was full of pine cones.  A couple on top had been painted gold but the rest were all a beautiful dark pine cone brown.  

I got out my paint and glitter and started in.  Strangely enough the first cone I grabbed had something that looked like hot glue all over the bottom.  I painted it anyway.  It seemed to work OK except for that 'glue'.  I grabbed another.  'Glue' again.  I started to sort through them all.  And then it hit me. 

 These were firestarters!  Pine cones dipped in parafin and left to harden on wax paper.  (Gift 1.  Simple to make.  Looks beautiful.  Useful too.

So I scrambled and looked for the pine cones I'd used in other spots around the house.  I came up with quite a few.  All of those were painted with white craft paint, sprinkled with glitter and left to dry on wax paper. 

To hang them, cut a piece of 1/8 inch ribbon about a foot long.  Fold it in half.  Tie a knot about half way down.

This creates a loop on one side and leaves two long tails on the other.  Work the long tails around the top few petals of the cone.  Tie them tightly in a square knot.  Add a bow if you like. 

And there you have it.  Gift 2.  Beautiful, snowy, sparkly pine cones to hang on a tree.  By the way, the kids loved them and the seniors who were our guests snapped up all of the leftovers!