Cone Flower Hedgehogs :)

Earlier this week, i took the kids hiking and we came home with our usual basket full of pinecones and acorns. i've had them just sitting out on display, but planned to eventually use them for nature crafts. We had so much fun making these nature crafts a few months ago, i knew i needed to keep these items on hand for more nature creations.
Yesterday Sage was playing with the acorn caps, and left a few sitting on my computer desk. The more i stared at them, the more i thought they looked like hedgehog faces. i just needed to find something spiny to use as their bodies. Later that day i was working in my flower bed and as soon as i saw the Coneflower seed heads i knew that little miniture hedgehogs would soon be born. Did you know Echinacea comes from the Greek echinos, which means hedgehog? :)

This is what i came up with...isn't it cute?!

These are really simple to make. All you need is acorn caps (the gnome hat kind), small pinecones (for ears), small seeds ( for eyes), coneflower seed heads and craft glue.


i'm not sure which type of oak produces these acorns, but this is the type you want.


First thing, you need to cut the stalks off of your seed heads. It is okay to leave a little 1/8"-1/4" bit sticking up, as long as you can still glue the cap over it. Then you put craft glue around the edge of your acorn cap, and stick it to the seed head covering the place where the stalk used to be.


Now you need the glue dry for a bit. i find that my mini-muffin pan works great to help keep them upright while the glue dries so that the acorn caps don't slip off. Once the heads are glued on, i snipped some of the spines in the place that would be the hedgehogs belly so that it sat flat on a table and didn't roll.


i used pine cone scales for the ears. i snipped them to the size i wanted, and then glue them in place with a drop of glue. i used columbine seeds, because they were the perfect size...but any small round seed would work. i applied a dab of glue with a tooth pick where i wanted the eyes to be, and then used the same tooth pick to pick up the seed and place it on the face.

That's it! Super easy, and look how cute they are!! This is a great project for school aged children. Preschoolers may enjoy it, but will probably need a bit help with the ears and eyes. If you try this craft i would love to see how your hedgehogs turn out! i have a couple other acorn/pinecone critters in the works, that i will post soon. Have fun with these!