With the Kids

Little Apple Yarn Favors

These apple yarn favors are super easy to craft and make a fun decoration for my fall kitchen. We like to think they just fell from our apple tree!

Little Apple Yarn Favors

Little Apple Yarn Favors

You’re going to love how different each of the apple yarn favors turns out! With every wrap of yarn, you just never know what wonky shape is going to be created. That’s half the fun!

Supplies:

  • craft yarn – red, green, or yellow (the cheap yarn will do, $2 a skein)
  • pipe cleaners (or chenille stems) – brown and green
  • piece of cardboard – 2 in x 5 in

Supplies Apple Yarn Craft

Instructions:

First find a piece of cardboard to help you with the winding. I tore off a piece from a box we had lying around. If you want a smaller apple, use a piece of cardboard that is 2 inches thick. Or if you want it a little larger, go 3 inches. I also bend my piece of cardboard in half a bit, just so it’s easier to take the yarn off when it’s done being wrapped.

Winding Yarn Apple Pom Pom Craft

Take your yarn color of choice and start wrapping it around your cardboard. We did ours almost 100 times around, so keep on winding!! Although I did wrap one apple only 80 times, and it looked just as good. The more you wrap, the thicker and tighter the apple looks. When you’re done winding, then just cut your string off, letting it hang in place. It will get tucked away later.

How To Apple Yarn Craft

Cut your brown piece of pipe cleaner in half and slip one through your winded up yarn. This is where the bent in half card board piece comes in handy. If your cardboard is bent, it’s easier to slip the pipe cleaner through. Then twist up the end together, forming a stem for the top of the apple.

You now put the other cut half brown pipe cleaner through again and twist it up on the opposite end of the yarn, creating the round apple and looking like the little bottom end of an apple. Twist it up a ways, then cut off the pipe cleaner with scissors fairly close to the yarn and bend that end of wire in.

Apple Craft for Kids

You can be done here or add a little leaf to the apple. With a 2 inch piece of green pipe cleaner, slip it under the top brown stem. Then bend in each half to look like 2 little leaves.

Apple Yarn Craft

You’re done. Now these little cute apples are ready for display. We’re making a set of 8 for my daughters preschool as they’re talking about apples this week!

Little Apple Yarn Favors Pinterest

Marie

Marie is a mom of 3 living in Seattle, WA. She's been the founder and managing editor of Make and Takes for the last 16 years, sharing DIY tutorials for home, family, and fun. Author of Make and Takes for Kids, Early Childhood and Elementary graduate, and currently teaching 2nd grade in Seattle!

Kids Crafts
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96 comments

  4. I just made one and it turned out perfectly! I am planning to make lots more of different sizes! I’m having a fall get-together tomorrow for some ladies, so this will be one of the crafts I offer them to make. Thank you so much!

  5. Hey, just wondering what sort of age group is this aimed at, i work with 5 – 7 year olds at a Rainbow unit!

    1. This yarn activity is for ages 2-3 up to 10-12. My daughter in the photo is 3 years old and she helped me do a lot of it. We actually just made them again, now she’s 6, and she was able to do it almost all by herself.

      Good luck with your party!

  6. I changed the green pipe cleaner to a green piece of foam paper and wrote my guests’ names on them. I’m using these as name cards at a teacher’s retirement party. Thanks for the easy and great idea!

  7. I simply had to thank you very much once again. I’m not certain the things I would’ve created without those pointers discussed by you about such concern. Completely was the troublesome matter in my position, nevertheless being able to view your well-written manner you processed that made me to cry over gladness. I’m just happy for your service and thus wish you know what an amazing job that you are putting in instructing the others all through a blog. I’m certain you have never encountered all of us.

  8. I do not know whether it’s just me or if everyone else experiencing problems with your blog. It appears as though some of the written text in your posts are running off the screen. Can somebody else please comment and let me know if this is happening to them too? This might be a problem with my web browser because I’ve had this happen previously. Cheers

  9. I’m an English teacher in Korea for kindergarden kids (3-7 year olds), and needed a simple and quick craft for letter crafts (“A” is for apple). I’m so glad I found your site! They’re ridiculously addicting to make and so fun (I’ve made over a dozen, from pingpong ball to baseball size, and they’ve all turned out great)! Thank you for sharing this!

  14. Do you think there’s a way to link them together and do snowmen?
    We’re having a playdate at our house this weekend and this could be fun to do!

    1. I’m sure there is a way you could link these yarn balls together to form a snowman. Just make the three balls as directed, but attach two together with more pipe cleaner, and the same for the third. They might be kind of wobbly, but still cute!

  15. Maria – For these apples, I do think 3-4 year olds could do this. My daughter is 4 in the post and she made the one featured! It would require a little adult supervision, as they might need help after they’ve wrapped it to cut and add the pipe cleaner. But they could easily wrap the yarn and have fun doing it.

    Let me know how it goes!

  16. These are neat! Do you think a group of 3 and 4 year olds would be able to do it as a preschool craft?

  19. I might be a 12 year old boy but these yarn apples and pumpkins are just fun to make!!! I make them everyday when i get home just to relax me before i do my homework. You could really make some money off of these !!!!

    Thanks for ideas and keep on thinking,
    Austin Costner

  22. This is great!
    We’re going to the apple orchard in two weeks.
    I’ll introduce this to the children before hand.

  23. did this THIS morning with a group of daycare kiddos that i get to play with every week.. they turned out SO cute and sweet! .. thanks for the idea..and of course i linked you on my blog!

  25. Love your idea. just a few things to add to it if you dont mind. You could do three white ones and strack them for a snowman. AYou can use felt to make face, same if you wanted to make a jack_or_lantern.Also, if you lightly coat a styrafoam ball with gklue you can cover it in yarn and have some cool things too. Plus, use different colors, kije maybe gold or silver and make soft ornamrnts for a Xmas tre. You can alzo make a few for cat toys. If you want them to be a bit fuller, lightly stuff them with kleenex or paper towels..Wow, your idea inspired all of that..

  29. I’m always in love with easy crafts where I can use up leftovers from other projects to make something truly cute. Thanks for this idea for Autumn. I’m picturing these scattered around bringing color everywhere!

  30. could these also be done with orange yarn and called pumpkins? perhaps a cute party favor for the pumpkin-themed baby shower I’m throwing next month…cute! and maybe even I could manage these.

  35. Just used this tutorial and ORANGE yarn, to make PUMPKINS!! Thanks for the AWESOME idea… I am posting about it tomorrow on my blog. Thanks Again!

  37. These are darling. They remind me of some of the yarn crafts I did as a child with my grandmother. I don’t have red yarn in my stash so we’ll be doing pumpkins first. Thanks for sharing!

  39. I love these! Definitely linking to this on my website. Think of the cute little pumpkins you could make with this project!

  43. Grrr… my classroom was doing apples last week!!! This would have been perfect!! They are sooo cute.

  46. Argh! Those are darling! I love the gift topper idea, and lucky me- I’m going to a birthday tonight! Thanks so much, I’ll be linking.

  47. My daughter and I (4 years old) just made these with some yarn I have had laying around for years. It was quick and simple and we both had fun. Very cute, lots of fun color options to think of!

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