What kind of crafts can you make from fruits?

Edible crafts will appeal to children of any age; they will be a particularly good solution in the case of preschoolers, when it is difficult to force a baby to eat healthy fruits and vegetables. The joint production of the composition will contribute to the development of the child and the establishment of communications with him, the main thing is to figure out which crafts are best made from fruits at a particular age.

Edible fruit crafts can be very diverse: complex, simple, funny, thematic. Since there are no exact instructions here, you can show your creativity right in the process of work, changing and complementing the figures to your liking. Therefore, it is imperative to make crafts together with the child, consulting and discussing with him the design, materials or additional decorations. It is desirable that he do a significant part of the work with his own hands.

During work, especially when creating complex compositions, you will have to use a sharp kitchen or stationery knife. Such work should be performed only by an adult, the child should not be trusted, even if he already periodically helps in the kitchen in preparing food. Figured processing is significantly different from the usual cutting of vegetables or fruits: during cutting of small parts, the knife blade is not in a level position, as on a cutting board, but at an angle, and without support and on weight. If you move it incorrectly, the knife can easily come off, injuring your hand.

If the craft is planned for an exhibition in a kindergarten or school, it should be made no earlier than a day before the presentation.

When making crafts, it is important to consider the shelf life of specific cut products. After all, the apple pulp over time begins to darken even in the refrigerator, the pumpkin becomes soft and changes its structure, the grapes pierced with toothpicks lose their juice and shape. Almost all fruits and vegetables undergo similar changes. Of course, there are various ways to prolong the original appearance of the product: you can, for example, sprinkle lemon juice on a white apple cut to keep it from darkening. However, such manipulations are mainly suitable for ready-made gastronomic dishes, and in the case of handicrafts, a cut vegetable or fruit will still dry out over time and lose its shape, which will affect the entire structure and appearance of the product.

Regardless of the type and design of the craft, you may need the following tools and consumables during work:

• PVA glue;
• watercolor paints;
• white and colored paper;
• colored cardboard;
• aluminium foil;
• wooden skewers or toothpicks;
• soft wire;
• a set of colored pencils or markers;
• scissors;
• a set of children's plasticine;
• stationery knife.

Before you start making crafts, it is also important to properly prepare your workplace. If the work is planned to be carried out with the child, care should be taken to ensure that plasticine, glue, pieces and juice of cut fruit do not get on the carpet or stain the table surface. To do this, it is recommended to cover the countertop with a newspaper or a large piece of cloth, and lay the floor in the immediate vicinity of the table.

The choice of craft (its composition and design) will depend not only on the school assignment, but also on the season. In winter, you will have to replace some of the edible elements with plasticine or colored paper, supplement autumn compositions with yellowed leaves, in summer you can not limit yourself and use the gifts of nature to the maximum.

Fruit figurines in the form of different animals are always very popular among crafts for school and kindergarten. By the way they are made, they are quite light, so they are often chosen for preschool children. One of the simplest and most popular is the hedgehog craft.

To make it you will need:

• pear;
• small grapes;
• toothpicks;
• dried cloves;
• currant or olive;
• fresh green: parsley and dill.

First, you need to prepare the hedgehog's body from the pear: make a cross-section from the side of the fruit from the thin end to the thick one, so that a plane is formed and the pear is close to a flat surface. Then peel off the sharp end of the fruit by removing the peel from it - to make the face of a hedgehog. Make eyes on the resulting muzzle from carnations, and attach an olive or a currant berry to the pear as a black nose. The needles are made from toothpicks: string grapes on wooden sticks and stick them into the body of the craft. In conclusion, you need to make a "clearing" for a beautiful and aesthetic presentation: put parsley and dill on the dish in the form of grass, bushes or a tree and seat the resulting hedgehog.

A lighter fruit craft in the form of an animal is a banana dolphin. Perfect for the smallest needlewomen, as it involves a minimum of work. Materials will be needed:

• banana;
• dried cloves or plasticine;
• black marker or felt-tip pen.

For crafts, you should choose the most curved banana, it is better if it is firm and slightly unripe. A banana's tail is cut off so that it is rounded - this will be the muzzle and nose of the dolphin.On the other hand, the peel is cut in half and bent to the sides, while the pulp itself is removed - a tail is obtained. It is convenient to use carnation buds as eyes, and a smile can be drawn with a marker, sculpted from black plasticine or glued on strips of colored paper.

One of the simplest and most popular insect-shaped crafts is an apple caterpillar. It is suitable both for a competition in an educational institution and for decorating a festive table. The advantage of the craft, in addition to the ease of manufacture, is that it retains its original appearance for a long time and does not deteriorate. Necessary materials:

• apples;
• carrot;
• olives;
• peas;
• toothpicks;
• long wooden skewer.

The apples for the trunk are fastened to each other with a long wooden skewer or wire, and the apple-head is fixed on 2-3 toothpicks. The eyes are made from safety pins and peas or bright small berries planted on them; in winter, you can use pieces of plasticine for this. A grape or plasticine is attached to a piece of a toothpick as a nose. It is convenient to make horns from rows of black olives or grapes planted on toothpicks. The tail is usually made from the sharp end of the carrot, attaching it to the outermost apple with a toothpick. Legs are also made from carrots, only now they should be cut into small flat rings and attached to the apples in the appropriate places.

Another simple, but very bright and beautiful craft in the form of an insect is a ladybug made from apples and black currants. To make it, you need to take a red apple and cut it in half (exactly). Then cut out an even hollow in the upper part, imitating the wings of an insect. In a free order, fix the black currant berries on the "back" of the handicrafts, and make the head from an olive tree and, having planted it on a toothpick, stick it into a half of an apple in the place of the groove where before that there was a cutting of the fruit.

It is very convenient to make a bird craft from tangerines or small oranges, its only drawback is its short-term shelf life, since the juice from the fruit will gradually drain, as a result of which the figurine may lose its shape.

To make crafts you will need:

• tangerines;
• a pineapple;
• radish;
• salad pepper;
• carrot;
• plum;
• blueberry.

The main craft (the bird's body) is made from two tangerines: with the help of two or three long wooden skewers, they are connected to each other in the desired sequence. With skewers, these birds are also fixed on a pineapple round or a cardboard box. Therefore, the length of the wooden element must be calculated in such a way that the skewer passes through both mandarins and remains sticking out at the bottom of the craft by 2-3 centimeters. The number of skewers, as well as the number of toothpicks used in the work, is selected at its discretion, the main thing is to remember exactly how many and where they are located in order to remove all unnecessary objects while eating crafts and prevent injury to the child.

The wings are made from the peel of other tangerines - an element of the required size and shape is cut with scissors. Then the wings are attached to the body of the craft using ordinary wooden toothpicks. The bird's beak is cut from carrots or cardboard, or molded from plasticine. In the form of eyes, it is convenient to use rings of radishes and blueberries, securing them to the tangerine with a safety pin or a toothpick. In winter, radishes can be replaced with banana rounds or, in extreme cases, molded from plasticine. Bird hairstyles and tufts can be made from lettuce, plum, apple (chopped). It is also recommended to attach them to the tangerine with a wooden toothpick.

For young children, crafts in the form of fairy-tale and cartoon characters, which they can make with their own hands, will be interesting. For example, the popular "smeshariki" made from apples and plasticine. Even a child of 2–3 years old can make them (with minimal support from an adult). To do this, you just need to sculpt the faces of cartoon characters from plasticine and fix them on the apples.

In a similar way, the heroes of the cult computer game, and later the Angry Birds cartoon based on it, are made from apples. This craft also requires a minimum of materials:

• apples;
• felt-tip pens or acrylic paints;
• colored paper or plasticine for decoration.

The muzzles of the "angry birds" are drawn directly on the apple with acrylic paints, markers or felt-tip pens if they are being prepared for a school exhibition. If the craft is planned to be eaten in the future, then it is better to depict them on paper and carefully fix them on the peel of the fruit. Various jewelry and hats can be molded from plasticine.

Themed autumn craft is perfect for middle school students, as it will require processing and using relatively many individual elements. The basis of the composition is a hollow watermelon rind, which depicts a basket, and the gifts of the autumn forest are laid in it.

Another difficult-to-make craft on the theme of autumn is a hedgehog in yellowed leaves with baskets. Baskets are made of two hollow apple halves, you can fill them arbitrarily, the main thing is to observe the appropriate style. To create an autumn mood, it is recommended to dilute the composition with chestnuts, acorns, bright wildflowers.

One of the most complex, but beautiful crafts is a melon boat. The melon is cut lengthwise into two parts, from one part they are formed and installed on the other side of the vessel. They are fixed with wooden skewers, which are also equipped with orange peel sails.

For information on how to make a mouse out of lemon, see the next video.