Whether you display them au naturel in a glass bowl or you paint them with glitter, pine cones are a useful element for dozens of Christmas crafts and Winter decorations. But before you go turning the conical fruits into a tree ornament, your pinecones should be dried to remove them of their sticky resin residue and allow their layers to open up beautifully.
Before you dry them, you'll need to clean the cones by picking off pine needles and removing any visible resin by dabbing them with a Q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol. Then, you should soak them in one part water, one part vinegar to get rid of any insects crawling around. The layers may close up when they're wet, but will reopen as they dry.