The period of time after the holidays are over, but before it starts to warm up has always been a bit sad for me. In Indiana everything is grey and cold during this time and this year we haven’t even gotten enough snow to at least add a little bit of beauty to this often sad season.  I am THAT person who likes to leave the Christmas tree up until Valentine’s day because when it comes down the house just doesn’t feel the same; it becomes sad and empty somehow. However this year I was forced to take our tree down early because a new addition to our family would not leave the tree alone and that was a battle that I just did not want to deal with.

WE GOT A PUPPY!!!

While our new fur baby has certainly helped our spirits this season, the house was still lacking in festiveness. So I decided to do a super easy, super quick project that would at least make the mantle less bare and more pleasing to look at.

Pine cones are wintery, right? I used pine cones, twine, burlap, and hot glue for this project – all things that I just happened to have lying around the house. My rustic decor tendencies are certainly shining here.

I used hot glue to adhere the top of each pine cone to the twine. Make sure that the twine is long enough to fit wherever you’re planning to hang it. I was fortunate to have flat-topped pine cones giving me a nice surface for the glue to attach. Be careful to hold the twine to the pine cone while the glue is drying. I may or may not have set mine down too early attaching the whole thing to my carpet…

Once I had the a string of pine cones I went ahead and hung them on the mantle. It was at this point that I realized it needed something more. I took a roll of burlap and wrapped it around the twine making sure the pine cones were poking out here and there. I did this without any sort of rhyme or reason to the wrapping because I didn’t want it to look too uniform.

Now my mantle is no longer bare and sad-looking!