Colourful Dried Fruit Ornaments

These colourful Christmas ornaments are a cinch to make and put a kid-friendly spin on the tradition of using dried citrus fruits for holiday decorating.

To make these ornaments, you'll first need to dry several slices of oranges, lemons, limes, or grapefruit. Depending on your child's age, you may be able to involve him in this step or even let him do it entirely on his own. Since my son is four, I dried the fruit myself and had it ready with the other materials when we actually sat down to make our ornaments.

How to Dry Citrus Fruit for Holiday Crafts

Drying citrus fruit is quite easy, although it can take a bit of time. 

These photos demonstrate the process, which consists of thinly slicing the fruit, patting it with paper towel to absorb some of the juice, and then placing the slices on a cooling rack to dry either in the oven at 200ºC (check them frequently), or out on the counter for several
hours or overnight.

How to Make Colourful Citrus Fruit Ornaments

Once your citrus slices are dry, they're ready to be made into Christmas ornaments.

Gather an assortment of colourful buttons, beads, and jingle bells as well as a few pipe cleaners.

Thread the fruit slices and craft materials onto the pipe cleaners, folding over the bottom end to keep anything from sliding off.

Bend the top end of the pipe cleaner over itself and twist it together.

Simple as that!

Happy Holidays!