Eco-Friendly Easter Basket

Easter baskets are such a fun tradition and I love putting them together each year! After a long snowy winter in Maine, the emergence of new life feels like a true miracle and a cause for celebration! While putting together the Eco-Friendly Easter Baskets, I think about things that reflect the season around us and that will help us revel in the springing Spring even more! I also try to think about what my children are in need of for the season, regardless of the celebration. Topics that come to mind are gardening, flowers, eggs hatching, newborn animals, and outdoor play and work. These themes help to inspire me while making the Eco-Friendly Easter Basket! I am looking for items that tread gently on the Earth, focusing on reusable objects that we will use over and over again, things we already have on hand and natural materials. 

For our Eco-Friendly Easter Basket we use straw baskets that we have collected over the years, including round or oval bolga baskets. We use these baskets for storing items and toys in our house during other times of the year. But on Easter we empty them and repurpose them temporarily for the Eco-Friendly Easter Basket and the Easter egg hunt. Facebook Marketplace can be a treasure trove of vintage or used baskets. 

For the grass of our Eco-Friendly Easter Basket, I love using Sarah's Silks Play Silks! These silks are probably the most played with item in our home! They come in many colors and sizes but we have this gorgeous emerald green silk as well as this extra large rainbow silk. 

I like to keep it really simple and fun and I generally stick to these few things as a framework for each Eco-Friendly Easter Basket: 1 book, 1 useful object, 1 stuffy (that we already have), 1 packet of seeds, candy and the silk scarves as the base.

Here are the contents of the Eco-Friendly Easter Baskets. 

Books: 

I love picking out seasonal books that we will be able to enjoy in our collection for years to come. Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco, is a wonderful picture book, that I remember from my childhood. Our youngest loves tiny books, so when I found this mini Peter Rabbit series, I knew she would enjoy toting these around and having us read them to her!  Our eldest, is really into chapter books right now, so I picked out a book in a series that is new to us, The Penderwicks, that we can possibly read aloud to everyone and that can help get us excited for summer!

Utilitarian Tools: 

All of our kids were in need of some gardening gear to call their own. So for the two littles (ages 2 and 5) I got a watering can with tools. And for our eldest (age 10) I got a hori hori gardening tool. 

Stuffed Animal: 

We have so many stuffed animals and the kids don't play with them all that much. So I like to pick out a stuffed animal and plop it in the basket to see if it will inspire them to play with it!

Seeds: 

You can get any kind of seeds that your kids can plant in an outdoor garden or indoor pot. I love getting the kids poppy seeds this time of year, because although it can still be frigid in Maine at this time, the poppy seeds don't mind and can be worked into the soil and then snowed upon and still have a good chance at germinating! I got an assortment of the Botanical Interests poppy seeds, that are all organic heirloom varieties.

Candy: 

This year I picked up our chocolate gems and sour jelly beans at trader joes (I appreciate that they use only vegetable dyes for both). But I also love a good chocolate bunny or eggs! I did put the candy in these wooden eggs we already had - which the kids have used in the kitchen and gotten wet so many times that they can barely close (or open once you manage to get them closed) haha! But I also just dribble them into the basket and that works just as well.