Drying Pine Cones

Many years ago, my sister-in-law used mini pine cones to make the craft for her twins 6th birthday party.  Their BD is Dec. 22 so the craft was pine cones rolled in glue and glitter then tied with a string to be hung on the Christmas tree.  The glitter was rather annoying - on (in) your nose, eyelashes, clothing, etc. but it was oh so pretty and so worth it! 

 I've often wanted to do the same but didn't like the idea of paying for pine cones from a store when they're free from nature.  The only problem was, all of the trees near our 1st farmhouse were cedar, our 2nd farmhouse maple and now here, at last, there's a row of pine right behind the house.  Now I have no excuse!

I started saving the pine cones early last spring.  If I didn't, they would have been chopped up by the lawn mower.  I've saved 2 large cat food bags full and there are still lots more cones at the tops of the trees although I can't imagine how anything can still be hanging on with all of the high winds that whip across the fields almost daily, year-round.  Maybe next spring I'll make it to the bush at the back of the property to gather some extra.

I followed this 'recipe' for drying the cones on www.tipnut.com.  I had to leave the cones a lot longer than the 30 mins. recommended, usually 3-4 hours.  I'm assuming that this is because they were so wet, still completely closed up and are quite large.  This method of drying them in the oven kills all bugs, makes them open up beautifully and best of all for me, gets rid of the pine sap which can be pretty miserable to remove from your hands.  I tried to speed up the process by upping the heat to 250 degrees F (from 200 F) but found that the cones became too brittle and a little burned around the edges. 

 The before photo. 

The After photos.

I'd like to use the best-shaped ones for Christmas tree decorations and autumn ornaments.  The not-so-nice ones I'd like to use for making firestarters (wrapping wick, string, old shoelace, etc. around the dried cone then dipping into wax) and bird feeders (cover with peanut butter then roll in bird feed).  We grew millet (bird feed) 2 years ago under contract and we saved 1 large garbage can full for ourselves and still have half left that I can use with the peanut butter. 

Now, only 1000 more to go!