Apple Paper Plate Craft

Apple paper plate crafts are a bit of an fall classic and our version is totally kid and preschooler friendly as you can see from my own kids making these.

Using cotton balls is a great way to use supplies that you might already have at home and it gives the paint an effect that I think looks pretty realistic for an apple, plus I think it’s more fun doing something a little different to just just getting the crayons or colored markers out.

Apple Paper Plate Craft

I love making fall crafts with my kids and apple activities are normally the ones that we use to start the season off.

Their simple shape makes apples really recognisable and there’s a nice big area that you can decorate, perfect for a bit of creativity.

When we moved house earlier this year one of my favourite things about it was the apple tree in the garden. Over the last few months we’ve watched the blossom turn into tiny apples and then watched them grow and grow.

It’s been a good lesson in patience for all of us and I still have no idea if they’ll be nice or – ugh – crab apples but I really love that tree.

When we were sat down ready to make this apple craft I asked the kids what colour apples were. ‘Green!’ ‘Red!’ ‘Look at the ones outside….’ Real apples are often a bit of a mixture and so our cotton wool painted apples are too.

Paper Plate Apple Materials:

• Paper plates
• Cotton balls / cotton wool
• Clothes pegs
• Paint in red and green
• Green card of craft foam
• Scissors
• Glue

Paper Plate Apple Tutorial

We actually had way more shades of red and green paint a couple of weeks ago but there was a slight incident where we left the three year old alone for a few minutes and she really does have a creative soul you know? Ahem. So for this we used normal red and bright green paints but the dark green one is actually Annie Sloan paint.

Clothes pegs are a great way to paint with kids because as well as adding a bit of difference to the activity they’re also great for building fine motor skills.

They’re also a great option if your child doesn’t like the feel of paint so we’ll often use clothes pegs and pom poms in place of finger painting. Plus it’s less messy which can be helpful as a mom!

Use the clothes pegs  to grab onto a cotton ball and then dab it into the paint before dabbing it onto white paper plates.

We also used a paper plate to put the paints onto as it means they’re easier for the kids to put their cotton wool into the paint and also you can clean up super quickly afterwards.

We made loads of apples, some with a few coloured splodges, some with loads and some, of course, with the colours all mixed together.

When you’re all happy with your paper plates leave them to dry and then cut out leaves for your apples from craft foam or card and glue them on using a glue stick or PVA glue (school glue).

You could also adapt this craft by cutting a stem for your apple out of green or brown construction paper and gluing this on to attach your leaves to.

More Apple Crafts for Kids

We’ve shared loads of apple craft ideas over the years from crafts like these that you can make from scratch to those which use some of our free printables to help get you started.

This apple painting craft is an easy and fun project that you can make using real apples and our free printable apple template.

Help your child to learn about the different parts of an apple with this free printable build an apple craft.

This simple paper apple craft is two sided and kids can cut, color and paste down the apple core, seeds, leaves and stem.

Finally this apple suncatcher craft was a big hit with my kids and they make great decorations too, ours stayed in the windows for ages!