The squirrels that live in our Willow Oak trees got pretty crazy and knocked down an entire branch full of green acorns! Needless to say, Po was ecstatic to add them all to her collection. She spent the entire morning collecting them in her acorn pouch. The next step was cleaning & preserving them for nature studies and decoration for her room. She also loves collecting pinecones on our nature walks, so we decided to try our hands at preserving those too!

There are a lot of in-depth blog posts out there that will tell you the best way to preserve acorns, but this is the lazy method I use:

Step 1 - soak acorns in a 1:5 vinegar to water solution for 30 minutes

Step - spread acorns out & let air dry on the counter for an hour or so

Step 3 - bake on an aluminum lined baking sheet for 30 minutes at 170 F. Check every 10 mins & give them a lil shake.

Step 4 - once cooled, hot glue the tops back on

Step 5 (optional) - spray with clear sealant to preserve them for as long as possible. Please skip this step if you only plan to keep these as decoration for a season- it negatively affects their biodegradability.

We used the same method for preserving the pinecone & I have to say I’m impressed! We’ll be sticking these at the front of Po’s nature collection. I’m excited to collect more after the squirrels later this fall! Happy autumn!