Pinecones indoors equate to cooler weather. I love to use them as fillers in bowls or to make garlands. In this crazy economy who couldn’t use some FREE decor?

Your first step is to gather some pinecones. Take a walk and collect more than you think you want. See how tightly closed they are??

Pull out needles and debris. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 200 and set a timer for 1 1/2 to hours. Baking kills bugs and forces the petals to open.

Are you wondering what the red thing is? It’s a silicone rack guard to keep you from burning your hands!!! Loooove mine. If you don’t have these in your oven you can find them here 3 for less than $10 https://amzn.to/3rbNsw5

Here is what mine looked like at 1 1/2 hours. I removed the 2 that looked fully open on the right and put the rest back in for an hour.

2.5 hours later at 200 degrees we are making progress! Back in the oven…

After 3.5 I was able to remove a lot of the pinecones. A few were still closed, so I put them back in the oven for another hour.

After 4.5 hours my basket of beautiful pinecones has grown.

These suckers have been baking for 4.5 hours but are still not fully open so I set the timer for another hour.

On the 5th hour I decided they had opened up enough.

If you want to play along, go ahead and bake you some pinecones. We’re going to make pinecone garlands, scented pinecones, bleached, pinecones, and more this fall!

Cheers-

Kristen