There is basically nothing left that you need to buy anymore. Thanks to Pinterest, you can hop onto the internet and create your own shampoo, dog food, ugly sweaters, cake pops, laundry detergent, toilet paper. And it will not even cost you three times as much as the products shipped over from China and available at seventeen of your closest stores.
I googled “how to make your house smell like cinnamon.” If only the post I am writing would have come up first, then I would have bought the Made from China cinnamon pine cones sold at a craft store near me for $5 a bag.
Instead, I boiled some cinnamon sticks in water for a few hours, dipped some pine cones into the cinnawater (after removing from the stove first), and let them dry on a rack before placing them in a pretty green bowl. (I even baked the pine cones in the oven first, just as Pinterest told me to.)
Moldy pinecones make a great holiday gift…for the neighbor who hosts the 3 a.m. parties; the boss who makes you work too much overtime; or that guy who just cut you off in traffic and then had the audacity to give YOU a dirty look like it was YOUR fault YOU got cut off in traffic. … What was I saying?
On Saturday, I decided that the pine cones were just not cinnamony enough, so I set about another batch of boiling cinnamon sticks. Just before I rolled the pine cones in the cinnamon water again, I noticed something. Namely, mold.
Pinterest did not warn me about the mold. I’m no scientist, but someone (Ben) tells me that bathing pine cones in moisture is one of the easiest ways to grow mold. The pine cones need to be sealed with something after the cinnamon oil unless you are TRYING to grow mold.
Next time, I’ll go the cheaper and healthier route. I’ll just buy the cones. My mother would cry if she knew I was considering spending hard-earned childhood pine cone-collecting money to buy more pine cones. But such is life.
- Cinnamon sticks $5
- Water: $0
- Pine cones: $Free from Northwoods in-laws
- Subtotal: Mold with a side of disgust
Cinnamon cones at craft store:
- $5, made in China, no hassle
Today Pinterest is teaching me to make cake pop frosting. Surely THIS won’t be a disaster.
sillyliss.com 
But you also have to be on the alert for toxic substances from China.
Can’t win!
Not to mention the child slavery. I wonder if the cinnamon pine cone factory smells better than the turpentine factory, though.
Nobody vets those Pinterest posts. And if you comment on one with honest intentions, you get flamed! Apparently you are not supposed to be negative on Pinterest. I hope nobody on Pinterest is reading this!
YOU can’t BUY pine cones. Live without them! Or maybe those fancy car washes sell “Cinnamon Pine Cone Scent” in an aerosol can.
Aerosol cans! The horrors, the horrors.
I meant the PUMP SPRAY. No CFCs!! Don’t hit me!
The pine cone thing may have been a bit of a failure but the desserts on Pinterest are great!!! And you don’t always have to make the things. I feel like I’ve eaten a 5 course meal just looking at the pictures, sometimes!
Everything I make is a bit of a failure. The cake pops definitely fall into that category, but that’s okay.
The bags of wax-coated, cinnamon-scented pine cones they sell at Menard’s come from Oregon!
What about the cinnamon and wax? Is the whole thing from Oregon? Sheesh, why didn’t we just buy those???
You sure are crafty! If I want my house to smell like cinnamon I usually just bake a batch of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls.
I am the opposite of crafty. I try crafty things, and they are almost always disasters. I don’t even bother posting many of them.
I was trying to go for a more permanent cinnamon smell than the rolls, but all of the sudden, I have a craving for them. OMG.
Cinnamon rolls are the BEST!!!
Thanks for the warning! They LOOK pretty! I spent 10 consecutive hours on Pinterest yesterday and most likely repinned that cinnamold recipe. Fortunately, I have 250 other repinned Christmas crafts that I can make in the next two weeks. Note to self: next year, start repinning the Christmas stuff 3 months before the holiday.
I never even thought they were a Christmas craft! Is that why my mother never made cinnamold when we were growing up???
Well, now that you mention it, maybe they aren’t a Christmas craft! Clearly, I’m dazed and confused from all of that Christmas craft repinning. I need a Pinterest intervention.
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