I've seen these pine cone baskets on Pinterest around the holidays (see photo at right), but my mom has been making them since I can remember. These baskets are great additional light pieces around mantles or next to trees to help decorate.To make something like this, you need a basket, pine cones, holiday ribbon, clear lights, additional holiday decoration, newspaper (for filler). Note that there's no right or wrong ingredient for your basket. If you want to use multi-colored lights, go for it.
Begin filling your basket with pine cones and holiday decorations. You'll use a hot glue gun to secure the pine cones, decorations, ribbon, and lights so they don't move around. I chose silver balls and red flowers with green leaves for my decorations.
You'll continue to fill up the basket until you can't see the filler (newspaper or cloth) anymore. Once your basket is full, it's time to add ribbon, securing with hot glue. You can add ribbon however you'd like to the basket. In the Pinterest example above, they laid the ribbon on the outside. I chose to cover my handle with the ribbon and make a bow on the outside.
After the bow is in place, it's time for the lights. I like a lot of light so I glued the lights in very densely and around the handle. You can see the finished product in the example on the left.
One way to add another dimension to your basket is to add smell. You can get scented pine cones, or my mom always glued cinnamon sticks into the baskets. Whatever smell reminds you of Christmas can be integrated into the basket by purchasing scented things or scenting them yourself with oils.
