Dry pine cones are not all that hard to find, even in a more urban environment. You can even pick up green ones and let them dry but that takes more time.
Take them home and check them out to make sure you haven’t brought home any unwanted hitchhikers – such as a spider or other critter.
Now comes the fun part. You can paint the cones gold or silver and sprinkle glitter or snowflakes or roll them in Ivory Snow to make them look as though they’re snow-covered.
You can paint them other colors if that’s what you really want to do – or paint or spray them with a clear finish and then do the glitter or faux snow thing and it should look appropriately wintery.
Because pine cone 'leaves' have essentially the same consistency as the rods used with aromatic diffusers you could soak them in a bowl of an appropriate refill solution for a diffuser kit and intensify the forest-y fragrance of your tree.
This is pretty obvious, but… once your cones are 'just right' take a short piece of thin wire, such as floral wire, and insert it through the base 'leaves' of the cone until it comes out the other side, then send it back through the other side until you have a loop. Twist the ends of that loop closed and then attach either a coordinating ribbon or yarn hanger or a traditional wire one.
Written by Dianne Weller