As I was brainstorming what to do, I realized that it's pretty simple to put together an eco-friendly basket for babies and children. The bonus is that I saved money in the process!
While my basket is geared toward an infant, these ideas can be applied for toddlers as well.
Reuse a basket.
Although we don't have any baskets at home with arched handles, we do have a lot of baskets lying around for storage purposes. I simply took a basket we already have, and I added this aqua green ribbon that we already have to give it a little extra color.
This was my favorite of about three baskets we had around the house, and while I may not use it for many years, it'll work for now. I do plan to reuse baskets each year for Easter, whether it's the same one or different household baskets.
If we do end up buying a traditional looking Easter basket, I'll first shop at secondhand stores or garage sales, rather than buying one new.
Skip the plastic Easter grass for stuffing.
Plastic Easter grass is the worst! Not only does it live forever in your home, it's very easily littered and it doesn't biodegrade. You can choose to buy paper grass stuffing (but if the pieces are too small, they cannot be recycled) or utilize items you probably already have. I pulled a few sheets of colored tissue paper from my stash and just scrunched it to line the basket. Be careful using a shredder on tissue paper; it may be better to cut strips with a pair of scissors.Decorative eggs.
When I lived in an apartment and then in our house, I reused a set of plastic Easter eggs for decoration that I had taken from my parents' house. At some point, I think we finally purged our old Easter basket and eggs, so now I don't have any lying around. Borrow some from a friend or family member, hunt for some at a garage sale or secondhand shop, or simply go without.This year, I'm using a few of these small vintage wooden Easter ornaments and this cute decoupaged egg to decorate Ari's basket.
Candy.
Luckily, I can avoid the Easter candy this year (and hopefully next year), but if you've got toddlers or children, Easter candy is a big deal. Buy candy in bigger bags, rather than individually wrapped, and put them inside your secondhand plastic eggs or other kind of cardboard or reusable container.Add your gifts.
Since Ari is still too young to understand this year, I have no problem in adding one of her existing toys to her Easter basket. The pink rattle ball is one of her favorite toys, and I'm sure she'll act like it's brand new when she sees it on Easter morning. Adds some fun color and saves me some money. Plus, since we're trying not to go totally overboard on toys in the house, it'll help in that area.
I decided to pick two new toys to give Ariana, but made sure to get things that would be both fun and practical. A few weeks ago, I perused the eco-friendly toys over at EarthHero and found a set of three finger puppets and a set of bath toys.
The finger puppets are from Green Sprouts and made of organic cotton. We have a couple of storybooks that include finger puppets and Ariana has been all.about.them. These little finger puppets will be fun for both of us.
The bath toys are from Green Toys, made of recycled milk jug plastic, and will be an addition to Ariana's lone little rubber ducky that she plays with now. Now that she's using a bath seat and able to sit up and play in the tub, she'll really enjoy having more toys to play with.
Only a few more days until the Easter Bunny makes his stop at our house!
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