I love decorating for Christmas and I enjoy incorporating natural objects into my Christmas decorating. Since we are in this house for our first Christmas, it is a bit of a blank slate.  There are new little areas and even a mantle to display my various Holiday vignettes.

My new property is loaded with evergreen trees and shrubs.  I really didn’t have any before.  The situation is giving me a crash course in coniferous trees.  The terms “pine tree” and “pine cone” are tossed about quite a bit, but as I am finding, are often misused.  After I started collecting pine cones (or so I thought) and wanted to make some things with them, I started to look them up in my tree identification book.  To my surprise, these were fir cones, from fir trees.

They have lovely little shaggy bits that stick out so I painted them copper and gold, strung them up and they make nice little Christmas ornaments.  Now if you get a Douglas Fir or a Noble Fir for your tree, these are perfectly suited to hang on it and add some texture.

I also made them in gold.

They make a very nice bowl filler on their own.

These lovelies here, well, they are spruce cones.

I thought they would make a nice garland.  I used baker’s twine to give them some festive color.  They hang very nicely.   I love the baker’s twine.  I bought a bunch of colors to play with.

I will take some more pictures soon (waiting for better natural light) and show off some of the little vignettes that I have come up with.  I am off to do more Christmas decorating.  Stay tuned for a mini Holiday home tour.