Grandma's Got Skills

In the way of Halloween garland! I decided it would be best to try new crafty projects while the grand-love is too little to participate. That way, I'll know what I do and don't want to deal with when the little one gets old enough to help. I'm not as young as I was when the lovelies were little and we tried every craft and baking idea under the sun. I'll be too exhausted to clean up afterwards now. So...

Ah, a box of HUGE pine cones.

I saw some pine cones painted as candy corn all over Pinterest so, I decided to give it a shot.

The white paint shows up nicely. 

NOT as easy as I thought. First of all, those pine cones are dirty and have spiders in them. Ew.

And then there was one. More like, FINALLY there was one. 

Second, painting pine cones is not easy. Or fun. I saw that someone spray painted theirs but, if you've seen me with a paint brush, you would NEVER let me near a spray can. Plus, if you want the kiddos to help, just say, NO, to the spray can.

The project that never ends. 

You should probably also bear in mind that pine cones will stick you so I'm not sure it's the best idea for Baby M when she's older. We'll just have to see about that. OH! Make sure you cover your work area. When you paint pine cones the paint splatters, apparently.

See the splatters? They do not come off easily. You can see them better in the next picture. 

CanNOT believe I didn't figure this out BEFORE the mess. 

Once you finally get those dang things painted, you have to figure out how to string them up. They're really heavy with all that paint on them. Birdie and I decided to tie each one on the rope, individually. That was fun.

And then I decided, RIBBON!

And the ribbon multiplied! I used ribbon I had left over from Birdie's bridal luncheon because I like to reuse and repurpose and to NOT shop for ribbon.

You know, I'm always reinventing the wheel because I think I can do it better (when will I ever learn?) but having a tutorial about this little project would not have been sneered upon.

And that's it. That's what I made. AND, I added some orange lights for nighttime.

Bottom line: This project took quite some time so I'm not sure it's one I'd attempt with Baby M because I don't like tedious. I could let her do a couple and then finish myself but, nah. The search for fun Halloween projects to do with Baby M when she becomes Kiddo M shall continue.

Meanwhile, we'll enjoy the garland and the spooky chicken wire ghosts I made last year. Another project NOT suitable for little kids. It was barely suitable for me. Chicken wire stabs worse than pine cones.

I did see this cute idea at What Happens at Grandma's. And there's always Pinterest, though that's what got me in trouble with the ghosts and pine cone garland to begin with. Anyway...

What fun things do y'all remember doing with your kiddos or grand-loves at Halloween?