• Dried fruit isn't just snack food.dried fruits image by Alison Bowden from Fotolia.com
  
  When the fruit tree in the backyard has a bountiful harvest, it is a challenge to use all the fruit before it spoils. Many home gardeners share the bounty with friends and neighbors, or use preservation methods, such as canning, freezing or drying. Drying or dehydrating is one way to preserve fruit. While dried fruit makes a tasty and healthy snack, it also makes an interesting craft material.
  
  

Doll Head

• Make a doll's head from an apple.apple image by Andrey Rakhmatullin from Fotolia.com
  
  Doll making is a diverse craft, with many material possibilities, including apples to create an apple-head doll. Watching a regular apple transform into what appears to be a wizened face of an elderly person is as much eerie as it is fascinating, due to the realistic quality of the results. After cutting basic facial features into a peeled apple, it is soaked briefly in a lemon juice wash and then left to dry. During the drying process, the apple shrivels, assuming an uncanny resemblance to a wrinkled elderly person. Carve the doll's hands from a second, dried apple. Attach the heads and hands to a doll's body, made from a variety of other materials, depending on the doll maker's choice.
  
  

Citrus Peel

• Dry the peel after removing it from the orange to make a dried flower.orange image by Aleksandr Lobanov from Fotolia.com
  
  Citrus peels, when dried, make a leathery-looking, craft-worthy material. Add the peels to a potpourri to provide sweet fragrance. Make an orang- peel topiary, by strategically inserting pieces of orange peels into plastic craft foam forms. Gift tags, fashioned from dried citrus peels add a rustic charm to packages. Some people add dried citrus peels to bath salts, yet others warn that ground peels can clog the drain. Dried citrus peel rings, strung on a rope, make a decorative and fragrant ornament.
  
  

Decoration and Fragrance

• When dried, use the orange slice as a decoration.orange slice image by isatori from Fotolia.com
  
  Decorate grapevine wreaths with dried fruit, such as orange, lemon, and apple slices. Even the grapevine wreath is a dried fruit, of sorts. Perhaps, not the actual fruit, but the vine of one. Instead of a wreath, decorate baskets or make garland from dried fruit, to add fragrance and décor to a room. Combine dried fruit in a decorated box or basket, to make potpourri. Add herbs or spices to the mix, such as cloves or cinnamon. Instead of a bowl of potpourri, gather the mix up in a cloth bag to make sachet. Thoroughly dry the fruit, to prevent mold.