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Don’t bring bugs and critters into your home! Learn how to clean and prepare pine cones to use in your home for decorating and crafts. Read this and follow the easy steps before using your foraged pine cones!
When you bring found pine cones inside for crafting, you could unintentionally also bring in unwanted guests. There might be small insects hiding inside those pretty pine cones.
You can prepare pine cones for crafts and keep the bugs at bay by taking a few simple steps.
Cleaning and preserving pine cones is easy to do, but if you really want to skip this step, you can purchase pre-cleaned pine cones on Amazon in different shapes and sizes.
Pine cones lend themselves to many fun crafting projects, wreaths, fall centerpieces, ornaments, and more. Have you seen these cute pine cone elves you can make?
Cleaning pine cones is easy and will preserve them to last for years so you can enjoy them for many holiday seasons to come!
Baking pine cones in the oven kills off any small bugs that may be hiding. Nobody wants an insect infestation when you are just trying to be crafty.
You want the pine cones to be clean of insects, but you also want them completely dry. Mold and fungus can grow and ruin your crafts. Throw away any pinecones that already are showing signs of mold.
Cleaning Pine Cones
Don’t worry if your pine cones close up when you put them into the water. This is perfectly normal. The scales will close when they become wet. Slower in warm water than in cold, but still they will close to protect their seeds.
When the pine cones are in the oven they dry and will open up again. (This process makes for a fun and easy science experiment with the kids. Watch the pine cones close in water and open up again when they dry)
Another thing to be mindful of is that sap can melt from the pinecones when they are in the oven. Be careful if you are allergic to pine resin. Line the cookie sheet you use with foil to catch the sticky sap.
Ready to clean your pine cones? Continue below for the complete instructions with step-by-step pictures!
How to Clean Pine Cones for Crafting
Don't bring bugs and critters into your home! Learn how to clean and prepare pine cones to use in your home for decorating and crafts.
Just follow these simple steps.
Materials
- Pine Cones
Tools
- Bowl of water
- Vinegar
- Foil
- Oven
Instructions
- Place the pine cones in a bowl or sink with warm water and vinegar.
- Lay the pine cones on a towel to air dry for at least an hour.
- Line a cookie sheet with foil and place pine cones on it.
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees and bake the pine cones for about 1,5 hours. Allow to cool before using in your crafts.
Hi just wanna know if I don’t have an oven what can I do . Thank you for your help and sharing