The adorable pom pom bumble bees are full of summer fun! They’re surprisingly simple to make and are super cute as little handmade toys or keyrings.

This week, we have been teaching the kids about the importance of bees and pollination. It has been a real area of interest for both of our children, so we’ve tried to extend the learning with as many activities as possible. We’ve planted a wild flower garden, created a bee hydration station, watched the new netflix documentary, and then finished off with these adorable pom pom bumble bees that my son and I made together. We just love how these have turned out, and it’s safe to say that bumbles may just be my new favourite creature

Here’s what we used

• Yellow yarn
• Black yarn
• Googly eyes
• Pipe cleaners
• Scissors
• Pva glue / glue gun

How to make a pom pom bumble bee

Start by taking your yellow yarn and wrapping a large section around your middle three fingers. You want to make sure you have a good sized thick wad that takes up roughly a quarter of the length of your fingers. Once you’re happy with the amount that you have simply snip it off at the end

Now take your black your black yarn and tie your loose end onto the end of your yellow yarn.

Wrap your black yarn around your fingers until you have a nice thick wax that’s a little bit smaller than the first.

Repeat this process alternating between black and yellow untill you have as many stripes as you like. We usually make the bees bottom end slightly larger to match the head.

Once you’re happy with your bees body you can very gently slip it on your hand and onto a flag surface.

Cut off a length of yarn and tie it very tightly around the cente of your pom pom so that it pulls the two open ends towards the centre and creates a circular shape.

(It’s important to ensure the pompom is tied as tightly as possible to prevent it from falling apart I’m layer steps)

Snip all around the edge of your pom pom, cutting open all of the loops at their centre to create a big fluffy ball, don’t worry if it looks kind of messy at this stage – that’s totally normal!   

Use your scissors to trim the pom pom down into a nice round ball.

Now we need to make our bumble bees wings. Take two short lengths of pipecpeaner and twist their ends together to make two wing shapes

Glue the wings down into the body. Now take a length of pipecleaner for the antennae. Fold the pipe cleaner in half, roll up each end into a spiral and then glue the bent centre down into the bee. Finish of your cute little bumble by adding a couple of googly eyes and then leaving it to try.

Aren’t these just adorable?