These sweet little DIY Forest Gnome Pinecone Christmas Ornaments are so FUN & look super cute hanging from the tree! A fun family Christmas craft project using pinecones you find on a nature walk!
Disclosure: Thank you to EnviroKidz for working with us on this post. As with every article on Hello Creative Family, all thoughts and opinions are 100% our own.
Read to the bottom of this post to win a $50 Michaels Gift Card and A 3 Month Supply of EnviroKidz Cereal!
Hi Crafty Friends!
I spent the first 19 years of my life living in a cedar sided house, in the middle of a forest, in a community called “Sudden Valley”. Our house had 53 stairs up to the front door, and was surrounded by giant trees. It looked like a giant treehouse. My sister and I spent our summer days out in the forest.
We would bring our books outside with us, make a bed of moss and lay on our stomachs reading. Sudden Valley was filled with forest animals including deer, raccoons, rabbits and birds. I even saw a porcupine once! I grew up feeding apples to deer, “rescuing” baby mice with broken legs and watching flying squirrels glide from tree to tree at dusk.
Raising Eco Conscious Children
My friends often tease me that my childhood sounds like it’s from a storybook. In some ways, looking back, it really feels that way. I feel very blessed by my upbringing and the connection that it gave me to nature. Teaching our own children to care about nature, protect the environment and be animal advocates is something that my husband and I are passionate about.
We spend our summers camping, hiking and exploring the Pacific Northwest. We also try to make as many “green” choices in our day to day life as possible– from composting and recycling, to driving a SmartCar, to supporting businesses that are making it their mission to protect the environment– Like EnviroKidz.
We are so proud to be partnering with EnviroKidz once again to bring you a collection of wonderful holiday projects that your family will love!
EnviroKidz believes in saving animals one breakfast at a time. Their mission is to not only make delicious organic food for kids, but to help save animals and the planet! That’s why each box features real life animals– animals who they support every time someone buys a box of their cereal!
Pinecone Christmas Ornaments
For today’s project my kids and I took a hike through the woods and collected pinecones. We discussed the importance of protecting our environment and about being environmental superheroes. We also discussed my “storybook” childhood in the forest and how when I was a child I believed in fairies and gnomes who I thought watched over the forest animals.
We’re honoring those childhood ideals with our DIY Gnome Pinecone Christmas Ornaments! These adorable Christmas decorations are made with pinecones we collected on our hike, along with craft supplies that we have in our makers space. These supplies are great for encouraging imagination and creative play.
One of the things that I love about these pinecone gnomes is that no two look exactly alike and that you can make them 100% your own depending on what craft supplies you have on hand, the shape of your pinecones and where your imagination takes you!
I hope you have as much fun making these as my family did.
DIY Forest Gnome Pinecone Christmas Ornaments
Instructions
Prepare Your Pinecones
- If you found your pinecones in nature (as opposed to buying them) you will want to prepare them for crafting with. Ask me how I know this (I taught a kids Christmas crafting class and had a girl scream when a bug came out of her pinecone!) Lay them on an old baking sheet and cook them at 200F for 2-3 hours. Take out of the oven and allow to cool before using.
Making Your Pinecone Ornaments
- Pick your favorite colors of paint and paint your pine cones in Christmas colors. Allow to dry.
- Once paint has dried, apply a layer of Mega Glitter Mod Podge to add a bit of sparkle. Allow to dry.
- While Mod Podge is drying, draw faces on your wood beads. You may want to draw the faces with pencil first and then fill in your lines using markers or paint pens.
- Heat up your glue gun. Make hats for your gnomes using felt and your glue gun. I've included a PNG that you can download in the material list above, that you can size to the appropriate size for your gnome and trace on felt and cut. You can also use it to cut the felt with your Cricut or Silhouette if you like.
- Add hair to the top of your wood bead head by gluing wool roving to the bead. You can also add beards if you would like! Glue the hats to the top of your gnomes head. Add a pom pom, bell or embellishment to the top of the hat if you would like.
- Use your glue gun to glue a loop of ribbon to the back of your gnome so that you can hang it from a garland or your Christmas tree!
- Add any extra embellishments you may want. I used pipe cleaners to make arms for a few of my gnomes. You could also use twigs for arms, or add pretty wings out out of felt to turn them into fairies! The possibilities are endless!
- Use your gnome pinecone ornaments to decorate for Christmas!
Notes
I love how cute this festive little crew turned out! How about you?
Thank you again to our friends at EnviroKidz for partnering with us on this fun, environmentally friendly project! You can find a complete list of their delicious cereals here.
Make sure you check out these other fun EnviroKidz projects on our site!
Want to win a 3 month supply of EnviroKidz cereal and a $50 Michaels Gift Certificate? Visit EnviroKidz and tell me which cereal you would most like to try first, and which cover animal is your favorite! Then, enter below! Contest open to residents of Canada or the US.
a Rafflecopter giveawayTell me… Which EnviroKidz cover animal is your favorite, and which cereal would you eat first if you won!
If you like our DIY Forest Gnome Pinecone Christmas Ornaments I would love for you to pin it! It helps others discover our content which helps us bring you more awesome content like this!
Pam says
I would like to try the Panda Puffs but my fave cover is the lemur.
Marilu says
Cheetah cereal, would be the one I would try. Thank you for presenting so many things yo us, and I am sorry about your loss.
Sheryl Young says
I’d try the Leapin’ Lemurs cereal first and I think the Panda is the cutest
joy says
i would love to try Turtle Splash – and i love sea turtles!
Robin Brown says
I think I would go for Turtle Splash. He looks so laid back and happy. Not to mention the combo of strawberry with chocolate!
Allison says
I’d love to try ChocoChimps … love chocolate AND that chimp on the box!
Melissia Stockett says
I want to try the Leapin Lemurs because I lobe peanutbutter and chocolate, but my favorite box animal is the cheeta. That face!
Darlene says
I would like to try Choco Chimps because I love chocolate! I think the Lemur is the just cutest box animal!!!
Nicole Harvey says
I would like to try the Caramel Pecan Grain Free Granola
Valerie says
It has to be gorilla munch. My two favorite flavors and gluten free!
Courtney says
The Leapin’ Lemurs look really yummy! The cute turtle is my favorite cover animal. 🙂
Colleen says
I would like to try the Leapin Lemurs because really who doesn’t love peanut butter & chocolate!! I think the cutest animal is the Panda 🙂
Robin says
My favorite EnviroKidz cover animal is the Asian Elephant. There is something majestic about the size and the slow precise movement of elephants. I would like to try the EnviroKidz Turtle Splash Cereal. What could possibly be better than chocolate and strawberry flavors together and for breakfast? Thank you for sponsoring the contest.
Kai says
AMAZON FLAKES, the koala
Jackie says
I would like to try the caramel Pecan Grain Free Granola because I think my husband and daughter would like it best
Jacqueline says
I would like to try Cheetah Chomps, but the Panda is my fave animal cover
Carolyn says
I would like to try Cheetah Chomps. I like the koala.
Len says
I would like to try Cheetah Chomps. The chimp is cute
Jackie M says
Love to try Amazon Flakes. Really digging the Panda!
Kari says
Amazon Flakes love the wee turtle.