Preserving Acorns for Decorating

Since we have been planning for our wedding, I have been searching the web for some type of confetti to put on the tables. I kept finding cute little leaves but they were almost all fall leaves. Nothing summery. While we were on a walk at Justin's grandmother's house enjoying the fall foliage last weekend, I picked up a big brown acorn with the cap on it. I said to Justin "Aww it's the perfect acorn!" and then it dawned on me. We can use Acorns. Yes, they still say fall, but they are free and so cute!

So we walked up to his grandmother's house and got three gallon sized bags and started picking them up.

It is best to start collecting acorns around the time they are falling, not later in the season like we started. This ensures they are fresher, shinier, and are less likely to have bugs!

When searching for your acorns, try to find the acorns with caps, even if they are not attached a lot of the time you can find them laying near by it's matching acorn. Most of the caps will come off in the drying process anyways, so as long as you find a matching cap you are good to go!


Keep a bag or bucket of acorns with the caps attached and a separate bag or bucket with the acorns with caps detached so it is easier to reattach them later when all the caps fall of the ones that are attached.

Check for rotten or moldy acorns as these will not be good. Also check for little holes. If the acorns have holes more than likely they have little bugs or worms in them! I found this out the hard way! They will still dry out, but you will be saying hello to the little squirmys later when you are drying your acorns from cleaning them!

After you have collected all of your acorns, it is time to clean them. What we did was got a bucket of warm water, let them soak for a few minutes and then scrubbed the mud and debris off of our acorns.

Next we laid them out to dry over night, you do not have to let them dry a whole night but we did to make sure most of the the moisture was out due to us picking up so many with holes.

Once they are dry you may think they are done. Yay they are clean right? Now we can store them.

Nope! They need to be completely dried and debugged in the oven.

But wait!!!! Remember when I said beware of the acorns with the little holes? I walked out the next morning to a disgusting bug on my kitchen floor, the bag that ended up on the floor was the bag with the ones with the holes in, (which is why they were on the floor). Beware of the ones with holes if you are scared of bugs, I am not and this grossed me out a lot! I spent a lot of the day scrubbing the floor with Lysol after this.......

Yep! Those little things are what are in acorns with holes. You would think that they would have drowned in the water, but apparently they do not!!! I found three of these ugly things on my floor the next morning! The next step is how you kill them for good and dry your acorns so they keep.

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees. Get some old cookie sheets and aluminum foil to line the cookie sheets with and put your acorns in a single layer on the cookie sheet.

Next, put your cookie sheets in the oven, it is very important that you do not heat them hotter than 175 degrees! You will crack your acorns! I did this with one of my batches and many of them cracked! Also, leave your oven door cracked open a little bit at least at first to allow the moisture to escape the acorns. I baked mine between 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2 hours. I will also warn you that acorns stink while you are baking them. Ferbreze was my best friend that Sunday!

Next let them cool and you can store them in boxes until you are ready for the next step which I started on a weeknight while watching TV.

Now if you've made it this far you are ready for perhaps the most tedious part of this whole thing. I am still not done with this step for my acorns. Gluing all the caps back on. Now whether you want caped or capless acorns is totally your preference, I personally think they look cuter with the caps on. If you don't like the caps you can save yourself some time here. If you like them read on. 

What you will need:

• Hot glue gun
• Hot glue sticks
• Newspaper to protect your floor
• Lots of patience

Remember hot glue guns can burn you! Both the glue and the tip of the gun are very hot. Use caution while doing this step!

First it helps if you go through your box of acorns and find all the ones that are already missing the caps and start gluing them back on.

I have found that it helps if you put a tiny dab in the middle of the cap and pull it over to the side some so that it secures it not only at the middle of the top of the acorn but at the side some as well.

Then once you have all of the loose caps and acorns put together, you can start the most fun part! Yay! I am sure by now you have witnessed how easy it is for the caps to separate from the acorns. If you do not do this step the majority of your caps will separate over time from your acorns.

Separate each cap from the acorns and glue them back on. This is a time when you can include your fiance, family, or bridesmaids! I made Justin separate some of them while I glued. It is tedious as I said but will be worth it in the end when your acorns are fully intact!

This is as far as I have gotten with these and will post the next steps very soon.

Thanks for reading!