Pinecone Painting for Christmas

As you know we're big fans of nature walks, & messy play in our house, so this was a perfect activity to explore. All you need are some pinecones & a little paint.


We've enjoyed many woodland walks recently & always seem to come back with more items than we initially set out with! My girl loves taking a bag with her to collect all her finds, & on a recent walk she & a friend collected an impressive stash of pinecones! But what to do with them all?


You can probably guess that she was keen to paint them, so with a selection of paints & a few brushes she was ready. To start with she chose to paint the pinecones with brushes...


...but it wasn't long before she was exploring the paint with her hands. I guessed hand-painting would be popular with all those gorgeous textures to explore!


Soon she was experimenting by dropping a few pinecones into small recycled tubs with a layer of paint at the bottom & rolling them around with a paintbrush. This covered the pinecones well, but she was still keen to feel the paint with her hands! 



Once she had finished painting & exploring we left the pinecones to dry overnight.


Once these jewel coloured nature finds were dry, we added them to a nearby vase.


We loved this sensory painting activity, just perfect for our autumnal pinecone collection. What a great Christmas decoration this is going to make too!