Arts & Crafts

DIY Pinecone Mums Flower Arrangement Tutorial

Fall-ify your home with a beautiful arrangement of DIY pinecone mums. Get step-by-step instructions here!

Fall-ify your home with a beautiful arrangement of DIY pinecone mums. Get step-by-step instructions here!

As the seasons change I get the urge to change up my decor along with it as well as give myself something fun to do when the weather turns cold and soggy in the Northwest. Now that I’m a mom with a toddler on the loose and another little one on the way, I have to be pretty selective about the projects I choose to start.

I’ve learned from past experience that taking on too much usually results in WAY too many trips to the craft store and feeling resentful about my dining room table being taken over by the mess for weeks. What I love about this easy pinecone mum arrangement is that it gives my home a warm, fuzzy, fall feeling all season long and it fits my criteria for the perfect busy mom craft:

  1. Inexpensive
  2. Can be done in 1 or 2 nap times
  3. Looks more complicated than it actually is

This arrangement can be done for less than $15, but I happened to have a lot of the supplies on hand already, so it only cost me $6. Score!

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Sturdy pinecones (I picked mine up for free on a walk through the neighborhood)
  • Small basket
  • Fall colored paints
  • Paintbrush
  • Floral foam
  • Floral wire
  • Fake greenery
  • Cotton swab
  • Wire cutters
  • Paper plates for each color to dry on (the wet pinecones can be a bit roly-poly, so keep the different colors separate)

Most of these items can be found at the dollar store, and, although I used silk greenery in the above arrangement, you can save even more by filling in the bare spots with a bag or two of fake moss instead.

 Fall-ify your home with a beautiful arrangement of DIY pinecone mums. Get step-by-step instructions here!

Ready? Go!

1. Start by painting the pinecones in your desired colors. Depending on the variety you found, you may choose to paint from the top down or the bottom up—whichever side looks more like a cluster of petals. Paint down to the widest part of the pinecone so no brown will show through once they’re arranged.

 Fall-ify your home with a beautiful arrangement of DIY pinecone mums. Get step-by-step instructions here!

2. To give your mums more dimension and make them instantly recognizable as flowers, use your cotton swab to put a small dab of contrasting color right in the middle.

 Fall-ify your home with a beautiful arrangement of DIY pinecone mums. Get step-by-step instructions here!

 Fall-ify your home with a beautiful arrangement of DIY pinecone mums. Get step-by-step instructions here!

3. Once your cones have dried to the touch, carefully secure a piece of floral wire to the base leaving long enough ends to twist together into a stem. The one pictured below actually should have been a little longer. I found that 2 to 3 inches is ideal to work with.

 Fall-ify your home with a beautiful arrangement of DIY pinecone mums. Get step-by-step instructions here!

4. Now arrange your mums by poking the wire stems into the floral foam. This can be done in or outside the basket, but the key is simply to keep adjusting your flowers and greenery until it looks right. A couple of things I’ve noticed from examining real mums is that the flowers are really tightly packed, and most of the greenery is fringed around the base.

 Fall-ify your home with a beautiful arrangement of DIY pinecone mums. Get step-by-step instructions here!

5. Step back and admire your handy work, you crafty thing, you!

 Fall-ify your home with a beautiful arrangement of DIY pinecone mums. Get step-by-step instructions here!


SamanthaSamantha Levang is a contributor at This West Coast Mommy, specializing in cloth diaper and baby item reviews. She lives with her husband and one-year-old son in Washington state, and they look forward to welcoming a baby girl into the family this January. Between changing diapers and Braxton Hicks contractions, she enjoys landscape photography and the never-ending process of home decorating.

Leave a Comment

22 Comments