Halloween Pine Cone Pumpkin: Pine Cone spOOktakular

This Pine Cone Pumpkin is the perfect way for the kiddos to DIY the decorations this Halloween season. This nature craft is fun and easy to make, and the best part is you can make them with supplies you may just have right in your own back yard! Make just one, or make a bunch, it’s a Pine Cone spOOktakular!

This Pine Cone pumpkin is the 3rd project in a series I’m calling the Pine Cone spOOktakular! In case you missed the first 2, be sure to check out the Pine Cone Mummy and Ghost we made last week. Oh, and don’t forget to check to see what…or should I say Who, is next!

We couldn’t make an army of Halloween Pine Cone characters without making the traditional Jack-O-Lantern. We tried to find the juiciest, most plump pine cone we could find for this one, but believe it or not, my huge pine cone stash is starting to dwindle after months of quarantine pine cone crafting! It may finally be time to go on a nature walk and make another pine cone haul for my craft stash.

I will say the same thing I always say when crafting with pine cones collected from the great outdoors. Unless you enjoy crafting with creepy crawlers, make sure to properly clean and prepare your pine cones first! I mean it is Halloween and all, but if you’re anything like me, I’m willing to bet you prefer your spiders fake. Even for Halloween.

If you aren’t an avid pone cone crafter, and wondering how the heck to get those bad boys bug free (say that 10x fast), you can check out my post with the exact steps I take to clean my pine cones, bake the bugs out, and as a bonus, leave you with beautifully bloomed cones! Hopefully you’ll find a nice fat plump one to make this Pine Cone Pumpkin.

If you aren’t lucky enough to live in an area where you can collect pine cones right in your own backyard, don’t worry you can buy them on Etsy, or even good ‘ol Amazon.

This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a cent more!)

Supplies Needed to Make a Pine Cone Jack-O-Lantern

1. Pine Cone –  Cleaned and prepared or store bought
2. Orange and brown paint – We used Jack-O-Lantern (how fitting!). You could also spray paint if you choose.
3. Black felt
4. Pipe cleaners- Green (you could paint the top “stem” green also)
5. Glue

How to Make a Halloween Pine Cone Pumpkin

Follow the below super easy steps to turn your pine cones into cute Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns!

Clean and prepare your pine cone

If you bought your pine cones, you can skip this step. If not, I already stressed the importance of baking those bugs out! You can find the steps to thoroughly clean and prepare your pine cones here.

Paint the pine cone orange

We used acrylic paint and hand painted this little guy, but only because that is what we happened to have on hand. You could also spray paint it, which is much quicker, but it does require you to be in a well ventilated (and well protected) area. Hand painting is much better, and way more fun for the kiddos. We spray painted our Pine Cone Ghost, and it did come out just as good. So the choice is yours.

Paint the tip top of the pine cone brown as the “stem”

Cut the Jack-O-Lantern face out of black felt

You can get fancy with it, or keep it simple like we did with the traditional face. Since we kept it simple, I just freehand cut the shapes out of the felt. 2 Right triangles for the eyes, a regular triangle nose, and a mouth with 2 missing teeth. For the mouth, its easiest to cut out the simple shape first, and then snip out the “teeth”. Our real carved Jack-O-Lanterns are simple for the sheer fact that I am not skilled enough to do anything fancier, and that reflects in our Pine Cone Pumpkin too.

Glue the face onto the front of the pine cone

Twist a green pipe cleaner into a stem and leaf and glue on top

There is no special way we did this, just twist and bend until you have a leaf like shape, and we twirled the leftover as a ‘stem’. You could also paint the tip of the pine cone green as a stem if you don’t have a green pipe cleaner. Or you could leave it off altogether, but we added it for some extra pumpkin flare.

You could make a whole bunch of little Pine Cone pumpkins with different shaped Jack-O-Lantern faces, or you could do as we did and make a variety. So far we have a Pine Cone Ghost, Mummy, Pumpkin, and you’ll have to check back to see whats next (but what would Halloween be without a Witch?!).

Pine Cone crafts are a great way to use natures best craft supply. Don’t think that Christmas is the only Holiday these bad boys come in handy, as you see they make great projects for the other Holidays too.

What are you making this Halloween? Make sure to post your creations in my Craftastic Facebook group and tag me @mandapandaprojects so I can see how you’re getting crafty this Halloween!

Until Next Time…

Stay Crafty San Diego!

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