(Understated) Glam Pinecone Wreath

I made a wreath!  I've shocked you all, I know.  They're almost my favorite thing to make.  Besides chocolate cake.  Nothing beats chocolate cake.  
But door decor is pretty much the homey-est thing you slap up on your house.  Want your house to say "welcome!  We like it here!  We hope you do too!"  Make a wreath.  Put it on your door.  Done.
If you'd rather your house say "Go away, I'm taking a nap." well, I can totally understand that.  But a wreath won't help.

I started by gathering a bazillion pinecones.  I actually used them for a different project first, and kept the nicest ones for the wreath.  I don't actually have any pinecones like this in my yard, and because it seemed absolutely ridiculous to pay for them at Joann's, though I knew I could, I drove out to my church building and ran around all the pine trees with a huge bucket.  
I did this during the day, and my church building is on a fairly busy highway, so I'm a little surprised no one called the police with my suspicious activity.  Surprised, but grateful.

 After collecting the pinecones, I sprayed them a bright metallic silver.  Nice and shiny!

For the wreath form base, I used a flat chipboard circle I got at Hobby Lobby.  It wasn't very pricey, and though I usually use foam forms I get at the thrift store for like 25 cents, I "splurged" this time because the flat, sturdy, light and NEW chipboard form was beckoning me.

First, I wrapped the whole thing in gray yarn for a nice cozy coverage.  You can sort of kind of see it in this picture if you tilt your head to the right and squint really hard.

I started with the outside ring of cones.  I used the largest ones on the outside layer, and tried to space the extra largest ones evenly around the circumference.  I used hot glue and just held each cone in place for a couple of seconds until it was grippy.  Then I worked on the inner ring of cones, which I had saved the smaller sizes for.  I used hot glue, and placed each cone in between two of the larger cones, kind of smooshing it in there.  It worked really well, the uh, what are those?  The petal things slid in between each other really nicely and added even more gripping power.  

Those pinecones aren't going anywhere.

So there you have it.  My Understated Glam Pinecone Wreath.  It's all silvery and wintery.  Which was nice and elegant-ish in like December.  Even January.  Now??

Now it's just depressing.

Come on, excruciating cold!  Give it up already!

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*