Pine Cone Pinter-Testing

So I got a little sidetracked from here for the past few days,
and it's all because of Pinterest.

I love Pinterest.  I'm not sure I use it like everyone else out there. I don't care about followers or any of that sort of thing. This blog doesn't have a board in Pinville, and I don't have any plans to start one. I'm just out there pinning away as plain old Debbie. Wave if you see me. 

I found something months ago that I have been dying to try for my fall and winter decorating this year. Last week, I decided to put it to the Pinter-test before the hot summer sun sets in Dixie. 

   

Bleaching pine cones.

Now, just in case you think it's a little silly to bleach pine cones, let me remind you that I live in the Piney Stick Forest. If there's one organic element that we have around here in abundance, it's pine cones. It would be silly not to decorate with them.

I usually just gather them up and use them au naturale, but but this year I happened upon a pin in Pinville with bleached ones.  They were  kind of white but a little taupey at the same time and really beautiful.  That being the case, I decided that I had to have some bleached pine cones too.

So... I collected about a dozen of them, and I  followed all the instructions to the letter.

I measured the bleach and water to make sure I had the correct ratio.(2:1)
I completely immersed them, and I  weighted them down to keep them from floating.
I waited  24 hours before peeking  just like Miss Blogger told me to do.  

Then, I pulled them out and drained them off,  just like she told me to do.
And, I left them in the hot sunshine to dry,  just like she told me to do. 

I baked those pine cones in the south Georgia oven all day Thursday,  just waiting for the eureka moment when my pine cones would look like her pine cones.   When the sun went down, I went for a look.

Did I have bleached pine cones?

No I did not.

I had bleached pineapples and bleached pine cream cones. 

I admit it,
I was a little disappointed.

In my head, I was blaming the poor blogger who started the whole thing. I  might have even suspected her of a little blog foolery, too. I went back to Pinville to look for the blue smoke and mirrors, but all I saw were big, beautiful, bleached pine cones.

So I went a-googling and found  out that my pine cones were opening right on schedule. Apparently, it should take days... and not a day... for the pine cones to reopen. (In fairness to the bleached blogger, that part should have been intuitively obvious. It's not her fault that I suffer from a perpetual state of insta-glam. ) *They* also said you could speed up the process by drying them in a 250 degree oven for an hour or two.   

I baked mine for about three.

Then, I put them back in the sunshine and waited some more.

By the middle of  day 2 (and three hours of baking)
 I was seeing some action.... 

You can see a little breakage on the pine cones on the left. 

There was actually very little of that, and it was barely noticeable when they started to open. 

Which they did.
And once they started opening,
 it was almost like they were opening before my eyes, too. 

   
Every time I looked at them,
 they were a little bit bigger and lighter.

By the morning...

Ta da!

Most of them are much more subtle and taupey than that one,
especially inside and out of the sun.



Mixed with a few natural ones, and the clump has a really nice texture.

I'm giving this Pinter-test two enthusiastic thumbs up.

In fact, I'm heading out to the Piney Sticks to pick up some more.

I'm going to try baptizing them for a shorter amount of time this time,
probably just overnight. I want to see the difference.

 If it's at all remarkable, I'll come back and remark.

And that's all I've got for now.

*****
Sharing on The Porch for Met Monday.