As you may know, we wish to someday have a Christmas tree that is entire decorated with handmade ornaments… some collected, some made by us, some found at thrift stores or yard sales. We know that it will take many years to collect and make such treasures but we are delighted that we have started on our quest. Each sweet ornament that we make will be carefully packed away after Christmas and stored until next year. Then, we will unwrap it carefully and the memories of this Christmas, the memories of our time together making it, will come flooding back. We will smile and reminisce and feel our holiday spirit grow.
Today, we made wax pine cone ornaments.
Of all our handmade ornaments to date, these little pine cones dipped in beeswax are my favorite of all. They are so pretty with their red bows and golden jackets.
To make beeswax dipped pine cones you will need;
* small pine cones
* eye hooks
* a drill with a small bit
* ribbon
* beeswax
Begin by melting the beeswax over a bain-marie on the stove. A bain-marie can be made by filling a pot, a third full, with water. Bring water to the boil and set your beeswax pot in the boiling water to melt. I have a little milk warmer dedicated to melting beeswax as I work with beeswax often. I let the left-over beeswax harden in the milk warmer and store it for next time. If you don’t often work with beeswax, a recycled jar will work just as well as my milk warmer and you can throw it away (or recycle it) when you are done.
While the beeswax is melting, drill a hole, just a little but smaller than the width of your eye hooks, in the top of the pine cone.
Screw the eye hook into the hole.
When the beeswax is melted you can start dipping your pine cones. Hold the pine cone by the eye hook and dip it into the melted beeswax, quickly. Once you have dipped the pine cone, hold it over the melted beeswax to catch the drips.
Let the dipped pine cone rest for a few seconds, allowing the thin coating of beeswax to harden. Then, dip it into the melted beeswax again, quickly. The quicker you dip the pine cone into the wax, the better it will coat the pine cone.
Let the 2nd layer of wax harden for a few moments and then dip it again, quickly. Soon, you will have a delightfully coated pine cone.
Cut a length of ribbon and hang your pretty ornament with a bow.
Merry blessings and magic,
Donni
32 Responses
I wonder if you could scent the beeswax with cinnamon? I think we will be making these this weekend. Thank you!
How gorgeous. For me these little dipped pinecones evoke thoughts of trees weighed down with snow. Just delightful!
lovely… my children and i have been making these since they were small.. my tree is decorated entirely out of handmade decorations. It did take years of collecting and creating but it is SO worth it… we hang our memories on the tree each year and remembering our Christmas Past…and we pack them away every year with new memories made. We are truly fortunate. Happy collecting and creating….
light and peace
Ooh absolutely love the idea of wax dipped pinecones. Definitely will have to try this myself. Thanks for sharing.
Love these!! I must share them on my Christmas blog. Thanks for the great idea.
It would be so easy to dip them in glitter after dipping in the wax, that would be extra pretty!!
What a beautiful idea. Thinking I must find some beeswax and make these lovelies!
Shanti
So beautiful!! Kerri
This is so perfect for so many reasons. First it’s simply beautiful, second we got bees this year and have our own wax, and third plenty of extra pine cones in the front yard.
Thanks!
Tonight my daughter and I made the seed pod candles…tomorrow we will make these! thank you, i love them!
Hello! Your blog is a wonderful surprise for me! I love nature and i’m a mom, like you!
Greetings from Italy!
Wow soooo pretty! What a great idea! And I just LOVE beeswax, it smells all childhood and christmas and winter and mmm just great! :-)
I’d like to welcome you (and everybody else) over to my blog and join in and make some christmas ornaments for the exhibition that I am hosting.
(forskollarare.blogspot.com look to the right for a link to the exhibition)
Thank you for all inspiration!
/Emy
forskollarare.blogspot.com
beautiful ! I have some wax heating right now to do the very same thing.
I love this! It looks beautiful and I can only imagine how great the tree would smell. I’m going to make this one for sure! Thanks for sharing :)
oooh I want to touch it! It looks so beautifully smooth, delicious!
I have tons of pine cones, old crayons, and some beeswax. What a fun Christmas project, and such good instructions! I’m going to do this…Thanks!
ooh, i’ve got some leftover beeswax from dipping leaves last month. this looks like a keeper…
And I know what to do we the pine cone that I’ve collected thank you for the ideals you have posted.
I think these are going to be the icing on the cake as far as gifts we give this year. I am all about the easy and simple gifts to make with the kids to give out to family!
:)Lisa
Thanks for the information me having doubt about this bain maries heating process… when I reading this discussion I got the clear points.. thanks for the information really help to me… thank you so much.
Bain Maries
Can you sue old candles to melt to make wax rather than beeswax? Then, it would be a free project for me.
Hi Carol, yes, that would work just as well :-)
I use beeswax as it has such a lovely smell.
Blessings and magic,
Donni
Donni – Would you be able to add cinnamon to the melted beeswax or dip the cones inbeeswax afterwards? Thanks
Hi Dani,
Yes… great idea to add the smell of the Holidays to your home. I’d expect both ways to work… adding the cinnamon to the melted beeswax and stirring well before dipping the pine pones would be more subtle. Dipping the still-hot waxed cones in the cinnamon straight after dipping in beeswax would work wonderfully too but you’d get a more rustic, cinnamon powder look rather than the smooth wax look.
I’d love to see a photo of how they turn out :-)
xo Donni
I will – thanks :)
I made these using left over used scented wax melts.
Hi Carol… I’d love to see a photo.
xo Donni