We had so much fun making these:
And these:
Here’s what you need:
1. Pinecones
2. Felt
3. Ribbon or string for hanging.
4. A glue gun (This is a necessity and only a couple dollars at the craft store if you don’t already have one! I don’t think there is a glue in a bottle on the market that would stick to pine cones.)
And just for the owls:
Feathers
Googly eyes
And just for the elves:
Tiny pom-poms
Pipe cleaners
Crayola Model Magic in Skin Tones
We found pine cones in our backyard and then put them in the oven for 2 hours at 250 degrees to kill any bugs and dry them out a bit. Of course, you can just buy them at a craft store.
For the owls:
1. Cut a beak from felt.
2. Cut a string to hang.
3. Wide part of the cone on top, using a glue gun (for little ones I let them choose the color of beak and the feathers they wished to use), glue the string, beak, feathers and eyes on. It’s that easy. Abbey added a bow for a girl owl.
For the elves:
Using the Crayola Model Magic.. 
…roll into head shapes, and dry. To speed up drying time I set them near a heat duct.
1. Using Sharpies or other thin markers, draw a face on the hardened modeling clay.
2. Cut a wide triangle out of felt for the hat.
3. Cut a string for hanging.
4. Glue the string or ribbon into the triangle, and then glue the triangle into a cone shape.
5. Glue pom-pom on hat.
6. Trim hat if necessary.
7. Glue hat on elf head.
8. Cut and tie scarf. (You can use fabric like picture above, but we mostly used pieces of felt like below.)
9. Cut arms and legs out of pipe cleaner.
10. Cut mittens and boots out of felt and glue onto the ends of pipe cleaner.
11. Glue appendages onto pine cone.
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Need gift ideas?
Here’s a list of our favorite, most-played with, delivered-to-your-doorstep, Mom-approved toys.
And here are ourfavorite games.
And ourfavorite books.
Here are some great teen gift ideas.
By age and interesthere.
Too cute!
Sarah, you're killing me with all your Christmas crafts! Why don't you just make a whole bunch of these cute little things and sell them on etsy, okay? I'm going to stick with making lots and lots of Christmas cookies. THAT I can do . . . 😀
My Mom & I made those last year, too!
SO super cute:
http://theviewacrosstown.blogspot.com/2009/11/crafternoon-with-mom.html
I hope she brought them out to decorate this year. I had to email her right now after reading your post to ask if they made it upstairs from the basement 🙂
These are adorable! I'll have to remember them for next year as I'm still working on the Christmas picture card project you posted. 🙂 Also, good idea about putting the pine cones in the oven. When I taught 1st grade, we did a turkey pine cone project for Thanksgiving. I got the pine cones from my backyard, brought them to school for the project, and can you guess what happened to the sweetest little girl in my class? Little bugs all over her desk! Oh, I felt so bad!
Simply Charming! Thanks for posting this.
Oh my goodness these are adorable! Must store this project away for future reference! You are one creative lady – thanks for sharing!
So stinkin' cute! L-O-V-E the owls!! Well, I love it all but the owls really cracked me up and the polka dot bow was just the touch for the girl owl! :o)
Those are great! Looks like a great project for tonight while the ice storm arrives in our area.
LOVE THIS! Thanks for the great craft project for today! I'm always looking for something 5-year-old-friendly!
I have a large bag of pine cones just waiting! REALLY cute! Thanks for the idea!
Really adorable!
Very cute!
super cute!
love it!
I love these! They look like something my boys would actually want to make. I am freaked out that there might be bugs in the pinecones though, since I've been bringing them in my house and never realized I might be bringing in creepy crawlers too. ICK!
Cute cute cute!!
Those are adorable!
By the way, I'm doing a giveaway today on my blog. You should check it out if you have time.
These are Terrific with a capital T! What a great way to spend an afternoon and your children will think of it each year when you get them out…priceless! Thanks for sharing!
those just make me laugh right out loud. My grandkids are gonna love making those things. I am so glad I went out and picked pinecones up before the snow fell! Thanks for the very cute idea. Hugs-Diana
so cute!!! don't you think to open an etsy shop selling such handmade decorations? for sure it would have great success!
Absolutely LOVE the owls! We plan on making these little guys this weekend!
adorable! i love these little guys!
These are adorable!!!!
I want to try these! Love the elfs. Thank you for the easy to follow tutorial. I thiiiink I might be able to pull it off!