I was cleaning out our ‘junk’ room the other day and came across about 8 baskets that I saved, cause that is what I do, and had done NOTHING with. Given that I have caught the Holiday bug this year…like 100% drank the Kool Aid…I thought why not make a beautiful holiday decoration out of these baskets. All they need is a little Christmas dressing and they will be GORGEOUS! And with a family the size of mine, thinking outside the box of what I can MAKE for a present instead of what I can BUY is a MUST to survive the Holidays with some cash left in the bank. So out came the baskets, and on came the creativity. My mom happens to have about 20 pine trees on her property and I had collected some full beautiful pine cones from her, oh maybe 2 years ago now…yes they were itching for something to do! I may have a slight issue with collecting these random items and keeping them, but hey, at least my ideas eventually come to fruition! So why not spray paint the pine cones silver and gold and use them to fill the baskets!! Brilliant! I filled the baskets with pine cones and one string of 100 white lights a few festive Christmas Floral picks and in no time at all I had perfect Christmas decorations to give to my family/friends/neighbors!
Okay so here is how it is done.
Glue the lights to the interior basket walls, I glued from top to bottom, and only glue the green bulb casing, not the bulb itself. Don’t forget to make a hole in the bottom, and poke the plug through as you will start with that end of the light string.
This is what your basket interior should look like and you should have about half the string left to weave into the pine cones.
Stuff the bottom of your basket-if it is deep enough to need two layers-with plain pine cones.
Weave the remaining light string over and through your plain pine cones. Keep in mind this is what will make your top glam layer sparkle!
These are my glitter cones. I drizzled hot glue over the cones and then sprinkled glitter of different colors over the cone. They light up BEAUTIFULLY in the basket!
These are the spray painted pine cones. I used both silver and gold for my baskets. I love spray paint! As you will learn 🙂
Here are the picks and ribbons I intended to use for my red/gold basket…you will see that the small ribbons overwhelmed the basket so I actually used two large gold ribbons. 🙂 Also I took the picks and ‘separated’ them. Each decoration stem of a pick comes apart by just cutting the tape, giving you usually 3 individual wire stem decorations. 🙂
I like to plug in the lights when I place the top decorative cones and the picks just to make sure I am getting the look I want. So plug in and place away! Place your pine cones first, making sure to pull in the lights as you want, then your picks, again making sure they are lit to your satisfaction!
Finally I added a gold bow on either side of the basket handle and ‘Voila’! A beautiful holiday basket to adorn your home or a great gift for someone else’s!
Here is a silver/white basket I made with the silver sprayed cones, and instead of bows, I glued a white ribbon with silver snowflakes around the basket rim.
I was able to complete these in about an hour and a half. I have quite a few pine cones left over and will show you my next entertaining project I have planned for them to make a Thanksgiving/Christmas Dinner centerpiece in a coming post!
If you have collection tendencies as I do, feel free to share what you have laying around that I might be able to help you make into a fabulous decoration, or share what you have made!
