We love succulents and make a lot of crafts using real ones and fake ones too. But the faux succulents from the craft store can get a little spendy! So we schemed and came up with a substitute – pine cones! We were surprised at how good they look as succulents! And lovely on a faux succulent wreath!
Now we are collecting pine cones everywhere we go. There are so many shapes and sizes! And once you paint them, they look like an amazing array of succulents! We are just trying to think of all the faux succulent projects we can make with them!
How To Paint Pine Cones To Look Like Succulents
Here’s a video we made showing how we paint pine cones to look like succulents:
How To Make A Faux Succulent Wreath From Pine Cones
Materials
18” grapevine wreath
Pinecones, large, medium, and small
Plaid Folk Art Acrylic Paint: Perfect Purple #2557, Burgundy #957, Magenta #4038, Fresh Foliage #954, Patina #444, Jamaica Sea #320, Turquoise #961
Spanish moss
Hot glue and glue gun
Hand saw or bypass loppers (the kind you use to prune roses)
Craft paintbrush
Steps
1. The first step is to gather pine cones. You’ll need about fifty. Yes fifty! There are little ones in there, but if you look at the wreath and add them all up…it’s about fifty. You’ll want two big ones, about 15 medium sized, maybe 20 small, and the rest very small.
We went for walks around our neighborhood and started spotting all kinds of pine cones. If you can’t find all the ones you need, they carry them at the craft store too. (If you collect your own pine cones, you might want to store them outside for a little while to give any bugs a chance to skedaddle.)
2. Cut the biggest pine cones in half with a hand saw or bypass loppers. We found that bypass loppers worked perfectly for this task and was much easier than with a saw. We discovered a nice technique for this: sit in a chair, hold the loppers by the handles, but rest the cutting part down on the ground. Slide a pine cone into the jaws. Then sit back (no fingers near the loppers) and pull the handles together. Works like a charm!
2. Now the fun (and messy) part. Paint the pine cones. Paint some green and some lighter turquoise. For the burgundy ones, we poked some purple paint down into the deep spaces to give them some depth. We just used the craft paintbrush to poke paint into all the nooks and crannies of each pine cone. Let the pine cones dry.
3. Hot glue the pine cones to the grapevine wreath. We like to start by placing the largest pine cones first. Turn a few upside down to get a different looking “succulent”. Next we recommend adding the medium sized pine cones.
Once you have these placed, it becomes more obvious where to add the small and very small pine cones. Keep gluing until all the pine cones are on the wreath form.
4. Finally add little handfulls of Spanish moss to the inside edge and outside edge of the wreath. We placed a little hot glue on the wreath and pushed the moss into place. You can also fill in any spaces between the pine cones with moss. Tada! Pretty easy! And so pretty!
We showed this project to some friends and they loved it so much they wanted to have a craft day. Here are some photos of our Faux Succulent Wreath Day. It was a blast!
The gals painted their pine cones. This rose-shape pine cone is from a Deodora Cedar. So pretty!
Their wreaths! They did the version we made for Woman’s World magazine. It was purple and green. Didn’t they do a great job?!
More pics of their wreaths!
If you have any questions about making your own faux succulent wreath, just leave us a comment in the comments section. We are here to help!
Chees,
Jennifer & Kitty
We love getting pinned!
Very clever! Love them.
Thanks Donna!
I’m not awestruck by many crafts, BUT this is amazing. I absolutely love this and am going to try it as soon as possible. These will look great, even on my Florida home. Thank you for letting me join your mailing list.
Thanks Nancy!! We’re from Tampa, but we live near San Francisco now. We think it would look great on your Florida home!
J&K
Absolutely love this! I also like the wreaths with the blue. Are there blue succulents? (not that it matters, it looks great.)
Wouldn’t it be easier to put the Spanish moss on first? Just wondering.
One tip, I wouldn’t use hot glue. Someone might hang this on the door and hot glue can reactivate and melt in hot weather, creating quite the mess. E6000 works well and GOOP makes a great all temperature glue – both available at Michaels.
Thanks Cricket! The pine cones stick better to the grapevine wreath than they do to the moss, so we just tucked the moss in afterwards. Great tip about the glue. We are impatient, so we love how fast the wreath goes together with hot glue. Lol. We got the idea for the blue succulents from a real succulent wreath we saw on Pinterest. They come in all kinds of colors! So pretty!
J&K
I saw this fantastic idea on HomeTalk and I was completely fooled!!! What a great idea and so incredibly creative!! LOVE IT!
Love it, I’ve got to try this!
Thanks!!
very nice wreath.
Thank You!
J&K
What a novel idea. I love it. I will definitely try making it. Thanks
Isn’t it a fun project? Thanks for checking it out!
J&K
Is there a reason you can’t use spray paint?
Hi Ruth, You could use spray paint. We wanted to use a lot of colors and the acrylic paints are $2 per color so it was cheaper to use acrylic. Plus we did a little extra highlighting on the tips of some of the “succulents” using a paintbrush and the lighter colors. Spray paint would be faster though! J&K
What kind of paint do you use ?
Hi Lynn, We used Plaid Folk Art Acrylic Craft Paint in 2 ounce bottles from the craft store. Hope that helps!
J&K
Jennifer & Kitty – you two are very talented! These wreaths are so awesome. I will take a stab at making one. These wreaths are so beautiful. I could see these wreaths at specialty store within in a flower nursery.
Thanks so much Julie! It’s a really fun wreath to make!
Jennifer & Kitty
Where can I get the rose shaped pine cones?
Hi Mabel! The rose shaped pine cones come from the Deodar Cedar. We have a lot in our neighborhood here in northern California, but the tree is actually native to the Western Himalayan Mountains! If you don’t have one if these huge Christmas trees in your area, you can buy the pine cones on Etsy.com . Search for “Deodar Cedar Pine Cones.”
Hope that helps!
Jennifer & Kitty
I love this idea!!! I have a plain wooden bird feeder that I’ve been wanting to decorate and paint. I think I’ll use this technique to give it a green roof look!
What a fun idea Heather! We think the faux succulents would look great on a bird feeder!
J&K
Hi ladies,
Thanks so much for the lovely idea and tutorial. Do you have any idea how long this wreath would take to complete? I’m kicking around the idea of doing this with some friends but need to know what kind of timeframe we need to get it accomplished. Maybe we could try a smaller wreath?
Blessings!
Hi Liz, We did this project with our friends and it took about 3-4 hours. You could try using a smaller wreath form as a way to make it go faster. We’d love to see pictures from your craft party!
Cheers, Jennifer & Kitty
Absolutely beautiful and timely. My. Either hinted that his wife would love a Succullent wreath.
Wouldn’t it be easier and faster to use spray paint on the pinecones?
For sure! But, of course, as crafters we like to get in there with a paint brush and get our fingers messy. We also wanted to get some extra colors on each pine cone to look more like succulents. But spray paint is fine too!
Oh my goodies! I’m not the only one that saw succulents in pine cones! Such a beautiful wreath. tfs Sisters.
Right?! They look so much alike! Thank you!
I like these and live in the Ponderosa Pines of AZ so this could be fun!
Wonderful!
I absolutely love this wreath! We have an over abundance of pinecones in our yard so I am very excited about making one!
Yay! It’s a really fun project. Enjoy!
Love this idea. I was tossing around the idea of a Dollar Store succulent wreath. They have a variety of colors. BUT, using pine cones…and they do look realistic as succulents….now that’s a genius idea!
Thanks Kathleen! Plus they are free!
J&K
How beautiful, love them also
Thanks Bonnie!
Did you seal them afterwards to preserve them?
No but that seems like a good idea!
J&K
Beautiful!!! Love this so so much! I’ve been painting a few pine cones and seeing if I can come close to your incredible work.
Where do you fine the Deodoro pine cones? They are gorgeous! Thank you for sharing you beautiful wreaths!
Kind Regards,
Kathy
Pennsylvania
Thanks so much! We have several Deodar pines in our neighborhood here in the San Francisco Bay area. But people also sell them on Etsy. They look like roses!
J&K
Stunning. I’m going to try one, I have huge long leaf pine cones. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Janet!
I made this wreath as a Christmas gift for a friend and she absolutely loved it!
I did cheat on the painting and used spray paint. The outcome was just as good!
How fun Elena! Glad to hear spray painting worked!
J&K
Love this idea. I’m going outside and start collecting pine cones.
It’s so fun. Pine cones come in so many shapes and sizes!
J&K
I think your wreaths are beautiful !!
I’ve not seen any like this & can’t wait to try to make my own =)
Thanks Glynnette!!
These are beautiful! I’ve already collected some pine cones. Would you recommend hanging this outdoors?
I can’t wait to make one!
Great question! You can hang it on your front door if it won’t get too much direct weather. Hot glue can melt in direct sunlight.
Isn’t it fun collecting the pine cones?!
J&K