Searching For The Cones Of The White Pine

 We like to use a certain kind of pine cone for the roofs on our gourd  birdhouses  and here where we live in middle Tennessee it is hard to find the pine cones we like.Our son said that when he took our dog Kaiden to the vets office  ( he lives in the country here)  anyway he was walking him around by the tree line and came across some pine cones  and told us about them. So we finally made it there last weekend , it was a BEAUTIFUL   weekend so we parked attheVet"s office,  it was a Sunday ant the office was closed.  Yes we asked them ahead of time if it would be alright to come pick pine cones.  When we got out of the car all we saw were lots of pine cones , " JACKPOT"   or so we thought so !!

  No these were the wrong kind of  pine cones,,,,, These pine cones were very tightly formed together and the tips on them were so VERY pointed and sharp NOT the kind we use but a good start to our hunt!

At the Vet's office wrong trees and cones 

At the VA Hospital White Pine Trees

 Then we remembered that when my dad was in the VA hospital here which is only about 20 -25 mins away but still in Murfreesboro. I had a bunch of Kroger shopping bags in my car so those were going to be used as our bags to carry ALL our pine cone  TREASURES !!  well hopefully !! We had also hoped that they had not mowed yet,  YEA  they had Not ! We got out of the car bags in hand and looked at the ground it was covered with the  " BEAUTIFUL WHITE PINE CONES "!! 

Look at All these Beautiful  White Pine Cones !

Yes Yes Yes  ! We hit the  "JACKPOT OF WHITE PINE CONES "   When  we walked up you saw all these red pine needles laying All over  the ground and laying in the needles were white pine cones nestled down in and on the red needles!!

All thered pine needleswith the pine cones nestled about them

This was our first haul of pine cones four full bags of Beautiful White Pine Cones and there were so many more that we decided to go back home and find some more bags or boxes or what ever we could find , we definatly needed to get as much as we could before they started mowing and then we would have to wait until fall to gather more.

So we headed home found what we needed and then back to the VA only this time we drove around to the other side and YES there were many more WHITE PINE CONES" !

Heres my husband doing his share of picking up as many of the pine cones as we could.We really didn'thave to be very picky about the cones they were just ALL so perfect ! So we just grabbed and filled as much as we could fit in the bags and then we dumped them in a big plastic tub.

The plastic tub we filled up

 Yep this is the final haul of the second trip back to get the pine cones. We ended up with a Total of a Full plastic tub and 6 full bags of  the " BEAUTIFUL WHITE PINE CONES  " 

We  are pretty sure we will have enough to  pine cone roof every   "  ENGLISH COTTAGE GOURD BIRDHOUSE "  for maybe the next couple of years. !!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out our blog " Comments Welcome "

Until The Next Time ,

                                                                               &

Like and Follow Us At -  Our Facebook Page  - https://www.facebook.com/In-My-Painted-Garden-170385616339261/?ref=bookmarks

Check Out Our Etsy Shop At - https://www.etsy.com/shop/inmypaintedgarden?ref=hdr_shop_menu

In The Begining- Did You Say Painting And Gourds ,.....

I LOVE  painting! I am self taught and I have SOOO Much more to learn ! I first got interested in painting when our boys were in school, Our son Kurt would come home from school every day and watched the painting channel usually Donna Dewberry &  Folk Art One Stroke Painting. He NEVER painted and NEVER picked up a brush to paint,  "he said he just liked watching her ! " I have bought almost all the early books, DVD, Vidoes and I watched and practiced and still practice but hopefully one day I will be able to meet Donna Dewberry and take some classes , it would be Great to go to her Dewberry U in Florida ,I would Love to be able  teach Folk Art  One Stroke painting someday. We have 8 boy's  and All have different interest  of course. They are All grown adults now, five of them have children of their own and we have some Beautiful grand children 

 Our son Kory & his lady Ashley do crafts , they do barn wood & wood signs & wreaths & many other crafts check out their face book  page, which we will post the link below, they also do custom orders. If you check them out you can tell them you jumped over from In My Painted Garden's Blog .  . Another  son Zachary is a tattoo artist .

 So my son  Kurt  got me very interested in painting , in fact the first gourd I ever painted was an Uncle Sam birdhouse gourd 

 Maybe you ask " Why Uncle Sam " ... There used to be a daytime TV program that when I got home from work I watched or tapped..The show was an hour long and  show cased  crafter's from around the world . One segment  in particular was about a woman who painted gourds , I had tapped it and absolutely FELL IN LOVE WITH GOURDS !!

This is Our Family 24 years ago

So we searched out gourds (we lived in Michigan at the time ) Found a GREAT farmer who has a FANTASTIC  gourd farm . He took us out in the fields and we learned alot , then we picked what we wanted . So every  year to couple of years we try to make a trip to the farm where we have bought our gourds since I started painting on them  and we buy enough to fill the back of our panel van from top to bottom and front to back  and hopefully that's enough to last for a year ! We have had to have some shipped to nus and BELIEVE YOU ME --- SHIPPING --YES EXPENSIVE !! But then again if you are having a shipment of like 25 to 50 big birdhouse gourds shipped or even a big box of small ornamental gourds shipping is expensive . That's why we try to keep our cost down a bit . But if you have ever shipped any place it depends on the weight and location , rural or city. I myself find that USPS (United States Postal Service)  has worked out GREAT for Us . They have always been on time and I have compared prices and they are the Best for Us.

 When we bring them home my husband  gets to work and sets up his little washing station and gets to cleaning them and set them in bins. Here's a short little video snip it of him cleaning them . Enjoy >

Next step of course deciding which ones are going to be birdhouses and   bird feeders. Then to decide weather to make them character players ,flowered, pine cone roofed or anything else we can come up with

These are just a few of the birdhouses and  bird feeders that we have done, some of these are sold but can be ordered , some are Custom made and some are for sale now..

This Pink  Gourd Bird feeder is a custom order that we had done for a customer she bought a few of them in different colors and flowers and sayings for when her friends birthday came along . We had a fun time painting them for her she told me the colors and what she wanted like flowers, butterflies, ladybugs . So yes when we say custom orders WE mean Custom  you tell us everything and We DO It Your Way ! We Love It !

This yellow Unique Whimsical Pansy was one that was just painted & listed at Our Etsy Shop

An assortment of Our Football Player Birdhouse Gourds , we can do any Team Player. We also do Baseball and Hockey Players in birdhouse gourds !

 

We really hope you enjoyed a little look as to how we got started painting and with painting on one of  NATURES  PALLETS  gourds !

                                     
                                                  Until The Next Time ,
                                                                     

                                                                       &;

Our Face book Page -  https://www.facebook.com/In-My-Painted-Garden-170385616339261/?ref=bookmarks

Our Etsy Shop - https://www.etsy.com/shop/inmypaintedgarden?ref=hdr_shop_menu

Kory &  Ashley's Face book Page -  https://www.facebook.com/Country-Crafts-by-Ash-179317462079702/?fref=ts&ref=br_tf

Donna Dewberry Offical One Stroke  -  http://www.onestroke.com/