Materials Needed:

• medium-sized pinecones
• 3 bright colors of acrylic paint (pink, lime green and turquoise are used here)
• white acrylic paint
• paint palette

• paint brush
• cardboard box
• piece of birch bark
• marker

Mix Paint Colors

Create three shades of the pink paint color. To do this, squeeze pink paint into three spaces on the paint palette, cutting the amount in half each time. Then, add the opposite amount of white paint to all three spaces; the lightest pink color will have a tiny bit of pink and a lot of white.

Paint the Pinecone

Starting at the top of the pinecone with the lightest color pink, paint the top few rows of petals. Paint the middle of the pinecone with the medium shade of pink, and the bottom of the pinecone with the darkest color pink.

Repeat steps one and two with remaining colors, if using.

Make Custom Ribbons

To create the matching packaging, start with a three yard piece of white cotton twine. In a figure eight pattern, criss-cross the twine around your thumb and pinky. Wrap the end around the center of the bundle.

Pick any shade of pink and roughly paint it onto the twine in a random pattern. Remove the twine from your fingers and let dry. Unravel to tie around the box.