craftgrrl | Someone else's craft idea (Reply)

I usually post my stuff in the sewing communities, because most of my crafting is related to sewing and garment creation. And frankly, I'm embarrassed by a lot of what I do in non-fabric media, unless it's made from a kit. And then, well... there's a delay between pictures and uploads, and by then, I've lost my enthusiasm. :-) However, someone in my favourite online gardening forum showed us how she made her "fir cone roses", and posted a couple of pictures. I thought I'd share them here, since they're gorgeous, not to mention INCREDIBLY SIMPLE, and hopefully, someone here knows what kind of fir tree they come from. She's in California; I suspect I won't see anything like this where I live in Canada. Warning: two big photos!

Fir cones are fragile, says my friend Mountain Cat in the OG forums. (I hope that link worked.) They disintegrate often before they even fall out of the tree, and the picture above is what you find on the ground, still shedding scales. Using white glue (because it dries clear), she squeezes some into the crevices between each scale to stabilize, and when that dries, she glues the back scales. When that's dry, she checks for yet more loose scales, and glues down everything that wiggles. When it's all dry, she paints. She didn't say whether she spraypaints or brushes, but it could go either way. A lot of her natural ornaments appear to just sit on the branches of the Christmas tree. In the picture below, there's a red "rose", and the white prickly thing is a sycamore pod painted white.