How to craft pineapples using pinecones

Pineapples crafted from pine cones, using green paper for the crown and toothpicks for the
prickly skin.

       Our 18 inch dolls will be visiting a Hawaiian marketplace soon and in that market they will need to purchase all kinds of tropical fruits. Pineapples are some of their favorites!

Supply List:

Detailed drawing of a pineapple plant.

• small pinecones approx. 1 -2 inches
• green paper
• acrylic paints - yellow and green
• white tacky glue
• hot glue and hot glue gun
• toothpicks

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Remove and clean all debris from the pinecones.
2. Paint the bottom half of the cones with the yellow acrylic gradually adding in green color until the pinecone is completely green at it's top most area. As pineapples ripen they are more green at the top near their crown.
3. Snip off the tips of a handful of toothpicks and then glue these using tacky white glue to the outer painted surface of the faux 'pineapple'. This will represent the prickly outer skin of the pineapple.
4. To cut the crown from green paper make long narrow strips with one end pointed. 
5. Hot glue these green spiked leaves to the top of each pinecone pineapple.

        ''The pineapple is a native of tropical America. It is now one of the most important of tropical fruits and is grown in many warm parts of the world. Botanically it belongs to an exclusively American family of plants consisting chiefly of air plants. The pineapple produces a basal rosette of long, stiff, usually spiny leaves and a leafy stalk bearing an oblong head of flowers. On maturation the central axis, individual flowerstalks and fruits fuse into one mass, sweet and juicy and of large size in cultivated varieties. Bromelia family.'' Dahlgren