Pretty Pinecone Birds
I came across this picture a while back of some birds that World Market sold years ago. Sparkly metallic birds? I’m in! Of course there were no instructions for how to make them, but it didn’t look like it would be too hard, so I set out to figure it out. As it turns out, I’m love how my little guys turned out.
When I started this post, I had no idea it would turn out to be both a tutorial and cautionary tale. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes in crafting though.
Supplies:
Pinecones—2-3” long
Craft foam balls—1.5” diameter
Model Magic (for eyes and beak)
Scrap cardboard or cardstock
Glue gun and glue sticks
Paint–spray and/or acrylic
Optional—beads (or something else) for eyes if you’d prefer
The trees in our yard do not produce the right kind of pinecones for this, so I bought a bag at Michaels. I bought the foam balls at the same time. I reused the wire and Model Magic from my SPIDERS. I used thin but sturdy cardboard (similar to a cereal box) that was part of some packaging.
The wire I used is 12 gauge, which is REALLY thick. It worked well, and I’ll show you what I did with it, but you could also take two pieces of thinner wire and twist them together. The trick is to find something that is strong enough to hold up the weight of the bird.
I used three different colors of spray paint. What I didn’t know is that spray paint eats away at the styrofoam. My first silver bird looks great, the second has a little more texture, and the rose gold has quite a lot of texture. Maybe it’s more realistic that way? Let’s go with that. Anyway, I also painted a bird gold, but that paint REALLY ate away at my poor bird’s head (see below). It covered the pinecone beautifully, so I might try again sometime by brushing on some acrylic paint. From what I’ve read, the key is using water-based paint. There is a craft foam primer that you can buy that could prevent the paint from destroying the foam balls, but I’m undecided about that because I don’t know how many uses I would have for it. If you’re going to be painting a lot of styrofoam it might be worth it!
I’m going to list the steps in the order of what I did, but if you are going to use acrylic paint on the heads, reverse steps 1 and 4. Paint the heads, spray (or brush) paint the pinecones, and then glue them together.
Step 1
Hot glue the ball onto the pinecone. I liked the way the birds in the picture look like they’re looking up, so I glued the head high up on the bottom of the pinecone.
Step 2
Cut out the wings and tail. I just drew something that looked similar to the picture, cutting it out longer than I thought I needed so I could cut it down if necessary. You could always play around with the shape though.
Step 3
Glue the wings and tail to the pinecone. Each pinecone is different, so I played around with each one to find a placement that looked right for both the wings and the tail. Once I knew where I wanted them to go, I used the glue gun to put some glue on the very bottom of each piece and placed them down inside the pinecone.
Step 4
Paint the whole thing. I took my birds outside and spray painted them on top of a paper bag. It took me a couple of coats plus a little touch up to get good coverage. Pinecones are a bit tricky to cover fully.
Step 5
Make the eyes and beak while the paint is drying. I had extra foam balls, so I used those to get the size and shape right, and then set them aside to let them dry.
Step 6
Attach eyes and beak. The Model Magic dried really fast, so it didn’t take long before I was able to glue them on. I used Tacky glue for this rather than my glue gun because I only needed a teeny tiny amount.
Step 7
Make the feet. I wasn’t sure I could pull off feet like those in the original picture without being able to solder together some wire or something, so I pulled out the heaviest wire I have and started bending it to see what would happen. I made both feet out of one continuous piece of wire so that they would be as sturdy and as easy to attach as possible.
Step 8
Attach the feet with hot glue. You’ll have to play with them a little to get the right balance. Bend them as necessary until the bird stands up on its own.
That’s it! I thought about making my birds glittery like the inspiration picture—and I even almost bought some glitter spray paint, but you know what? I like my shiny little birds the way they are. Even with their partially melted heads.
