With more days about to be spent inside a warm house, I have been dreaming up easy crafts for kids that can be done indoors yet focus on the season of fall/winter. Yarn Sticks are the first easy fall craft we’ve been toying with in my house. You can make the entire thing an activity by starting with a stick hunt outside, then going inside to wrap the sticks with yarn. Don’t forget a big cup of hot chocolate to sip as you craft!

We got our first rainstorm here in LA in over a year and boy was it needed! The thing I love most about fall and winter and rain is traipsing around outside afterwards, the fresh scent of soaked greenery and soil, the billowing white/gray clouds overhead, and the abundance of nature’s waste that has fallen to the ground like leaves and sticks. It was fun scavenging for sticks for this project after the rainstorm. They were everywhere in all shapes and sizes and we collected a handful in a matter of minutes. I love collecting nature bits and putting them on display in our house or patio. There is something enchanting about seeing a collection of found natural objects grouped together. This project takes it one step further and embellishes those found objects.

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Easy Crafts for Kids: Yarn Sticks

Materials

• Sticks in a variety of sizes
• Variegated/Ombre yarn like this or this style  (Hint: textural yarns add a little flair to the sticks too!)
• Scissors
• Glue (Optional)

Instructions

READ FIRST: The key to this project is using variegated (or multicolored) ombre yarn. There are a lot of yarn wrapped stick ideas out there but typically they use different yarns to create a multi-colored effect. Using a yarn that is multicolored already is an easy way to get the same effect without having to start and stop the wrapping process. Plus it’s fun to see the colors “appear” as you wrap the sticks!

• Step One Cut a 24”-36” length of yarn/string.
• Step Two Tie one end of the string onto the end of one stick about ½” from the end with a tight knot.
• Step Three Trim the loose end of string off.
• Step Four Begin wrapping the stick up towards the end of the stick and then back down the length of the stick.
• Step Five When the stick is entirely covered in yarn you can either tie it off and trim away the excess yarn OR continue wrapping the stick to add more color and texture until you reach the end of your yarn strip.
• Step Six (Optional) Add a dallop of glue on the knot to secure in place.

You’re done! Make a few of them for a variety of projects.

Tips

• This project is best for school age kids. It’s an easy quick project but wrapping the yarn neatly requires a little patience and finesse.
• If you hold the stick in your left hand and place your right hand around the branch and yarn you can twist the yarn really easily around the stick with a minimum amount of movement.
• Wrap long branches to use as centerpieces for Thanksgiving!

Looks Like

Natalie Miller. Natalie Miller is an architect and tapestry designer from Australia. I first discovered her colorful woven work on the red thread blog’s Space to Create Series. And of course the fact that she is an architect AND tapestry genus piqued my interest. Her work is both fanciful, color popping and modern and I love that she is working with macramé, a craft that seemed destined to be buried in the 70s history books. This image here is why I immediately thought of her when we did this project.

Conclusion & More

So as you ponder easy crafts for kids and other activities and art to keep them busy while stuck inside during the fall/winter try making some yarn sticks. They take just a few minutes to make each and are pretty just as they are OR use them for other stick crafts.

Mobile

We turned them into a Twirling Twig Mobile here:

Wall Hanging

We also paired them with DIY pom poms in a sweet Fall wall hanging:

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