Festive painted pinecones

After a Sunday walk through the woods a few weeks ago, we returned home with bags full of pinecones wondering what to do with them. Before long, we decided to turn them into a festive garland and save any extras for tying onto presents. If you also have pinecones at home, or fancy collecting some, here’s what to do if you’d like to make a homemade decoration of your own.

Pop your collected pinecones into a basin of warm water with a cupful of vinegar and leave for half an hour. This cleans, removes sap and de-bugs the cones; let them dry naturally upon sheets of newspaper.

Mix 4 tablespoons of white emulsion with 500ml cold water. Once the cones are thoroughly dry, dip them into your diluted paint, then put them on greaseproof paper to dry naturally again.

Once dry, loop a small length of twine or string through the top of your pinecones and hang them upon a felt ball garland (you can buy them online or in homeware shops) or tie them onto your wrapped presents for the prettiest of presentation! 

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Make your own vintage bunting

With a summer of celebrations upon us (first The Queen’s Jubilee, and soon, the Olympics), now couldn’t be a better time to festoon your home with decorations – vintage, lace-laden ones of course!

All you need to make your own vintage bunting is a selection of old doilies (fabric ones, though paper ones would work too – just use glue instead of sewing them). You can often buy a bundle on eBay, or if you’re lucky, someone in your family may have an stash simply waiting for a use.

Once you’ve got your doilies – big or small, the more variety the better – all you need to do is cut each one in half.  Find, or buy, a length of cream-hued bias binding that’s wide enough to slip cut doilies in-between the fold.

Arrange your cut doilies as you’d like them to sit on the finished bunting, slipping them into the bias binding and pinning them in place. Once ready, stitch the entire length of the binding down on a sewing machine and voila - your very own vintage bunting.