But apart from the ancient game, played by so many generations of children, there are some other age-old uses for conkers:
- Keeping spiders at bay.
- Natural moth balls.
- Treating a sprain.
- Washing liquid.
- Flour.
- Decorative display.
- Happy Autumn!
What can children make with conkers?
Do a conker painting
- Place a piece of paper at the bottom of a cardboard box.
- Squeeze a few blobs of brightly-coloured paint on the paper.
- Add your conkers and encourage youngsters to roll them around the box to make a swirly pattern.
- Experiment with different colours, or try other natural items like pine cones.
How do you make conkers for crafting?
There are four key things you need to prepare a conker ready for battle, these are:
- Choose what type of conker you want to play with (i.e. whether you want to harden your conker or play au naturale)
- Hole your conker safely.
- String your conker.
- Practice your conker moves.
How do you stick conkers together?
Using cocktail sticks or match sticks allows you to connect conkers together to create different shapes, such as snowflakes and stars. You can paint the conkers to create baubles, use acrylic pens* to draw patterns, or draw faces on them to create angels/reindeer etc.
What can you do with conkers? – Related Questions
Do conkers stop spiders?
Conkers might not repel spiders
Unfortunately, there’s no proof this is true. The story goes that conkers contain a noxious chemical that repels spiders but no-one’s ever been able to scientifically prove it. There’s hearsay that if a spider gets close to a conker it will curl its legs up and die within one day.
Why do you put conkers in vinegar?
Soaking your conker in vinegar will essentially pickle it, naturally removing some of the moisture from the inside, whilst at the same time hardening the outside (without 100% drying it out).
How do you preserve conkers for crafts?
THE ONLY way to actually harden conkers, despite what many people say, is to store them in a cool, dry place for at least one year. It is best to store about twenty or more in a shoebox in a garage. Many of the conkers will go mouldy and the insides will become full of a green dusty substance, but one should survive.
How do you get conkers ready to play?
Two hours at 120C should be enough to harden them. Remember to let them cool before playing. Soak your conkers in vinegar for a few days, then bake as above. Paint your conkers with clear nail varnish.
How long do you leave conkers in vinegar?
Put your conker in vinegar for 2 minutes. When the time is up, take it out and put it on a hard surface. Heat the oven to 250°C (an adult should do this bit) and put it in for 1 minute and 30 seconds. Take it out of the oven and leave on a hard surface until lukewarm.
Do you put conkers in the oven?
One way to make your conkers extra strong is in the oven. With a grown up’s help, put your favourite conkers on a baking tray and whack them in the oven on a low heat (140C) for anywhere up to two hours (or whenever you get bored and desperate to get on with it, but the closer to two hours the better).
Are conkers edible?
No. Conkers contain a poisonous chemical called aesculin. Eating a conker is unlikely to be fatal, but it may make you ill. They are poisonous to most animals too, including dogs, but some species such as deer and wild boar can eat them.
Are conkers poisonous to dogs?
Conkers contain a poison called aesculin which is toxic to dogs. A dog would normally need to ingest several conkers to suffer severe poisoning. Clinical signs are usually seen between one and six hours after ingestion, although they can be delayed for up to two days.
Are conkers and horse chestnuts the same?
Horse chestnut and sweet chestnut fruits are enough to tell the two types of chestnut apart. The fruits of the horse chestnut, commonly known as conkers, have a very spherical shape.
Can a human eat horse chestnuts?
Sweet chestnuts are edible, but horse chestnuts are poisonous. If eaten, they can cause digestive problems such as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and throat irritation. More than one in 10 cases of poisonous plants being mistaken for edible plants involve horse and sweet chestnuts.
Why are horse chestnuts poisonous?
Horse chestnuts contain a toxin called saponin aesculin that makes all parts of these trees poisonous. This toxin isn’t absorbed very well, so it tends to produce mild to moderate symptoms when people eat horse chestnuts. The most common symptom is stomach irritation.
Why are horse chestnuts edible?
While you cannot safely eat horse chestnuts or feed them to livestock, they have medicinal uses. Extract from the poisonous conkers contains aescin. This is used to treat hemorrhoids and chronic venous insufficiency. In addition, over history conkers have been used to keep spiders away.
Do horse chestnut trees grow in the USA?
Horse chestnuts exist in nature as both a tree and a shrub, and are found in all temperate regions of Europe, Asia, and North America.
Do chestnuts grow in the US?
In a range stretching from southern Maine to the Florida Panhandle and west to the Mississippi River, the chestnut dominated the landscape, accounting for a quarter of all trees in the eastern hardwood forest.