Easter Basket Ideas:
A reader asks:
Got any inexpensive ideas for Easter gifts for the kids? Also, do you have any ideas that would focus on the real meaning of Easter and not just bunnies and eggs?
Easter is a great time of the year to celebrate, especially if you have the hope that comes from Jesus Christ and His resurrection. Here are some ideas for Easter gifts. Try some of them and if the creative juices start flowing, make up some of your own! Try our Resurrection Eggs, they are a great idea to help your family remember why we celebrate Easter.
Easter Baskets:
You can find inexpensive Easter baskets at garage sales and thrift stores. I never spend more than .25 for one.
If you don’t have Easter baskets, you can also use:
- Plain wicker baskets
- Baskets spray painted an Easter color
- A cute straw hat
- A pail for the sandbox
- A bowl wrapped in tissue paper
- Paper sacks that the kids decorate. Cut out pictures from magazines or use stickers. Glue or stick them on and then paint or color around them.
- Any sort of plastic storage container. These often can be used later for storage.
- For a "family" Easter basket, set a nice plate on the table with Easter grass and goodies arranged on the plate or platter. This is great when you have older kids.
Fillers for Easter Baskets:
- Buy candy after Christmas or Valentine’s Day at half price and keep to fill Easter baskets.
- Make Easter cookies in the shapes of bunnies, eggs, crosses or any other Easter shape that comes to mind and decorate.
- Popcorn Balls or Rice Krispie Treats colored in pastel colors.
- String Froot Loops onto yarn and tie to make a necklace.
- Don’t fill baskets. Instead put jelly beans and candy in plastic eggs so the kids can fill their own baskets. You can also put nickels, dimes, toy soldiers, bugs, stickers, barrettes or hair ribbons in the eggs. Hide them outside or in the house if you live in a climate where it’s usually cold on Easter.
- Make coupons for getting out of chores, staying up late one night, having a friend over for a sleep over or a special dinner that they like.
- Include like new books purchased at garage sales or thrift stores.
- Homemade slime, play dough, sidewalk chalk, bubbles or the ingredients for crystal gardens.
- Wacky crayons? Crayon pieces melted together in a muffin tin to make a "big" crayon.
- Flower seeds that the kids can grow
- Mini-stuffed animals purchased at garage sales or on clearance the year before.
- Paper dolls or coloring books. There are many available on the Internet that you can print yourself.
- For teenagers, put these items in baskets: lotions, soaps, suntan lotions, fingernail polish, movie tickets, tickets for getting out of a chore, ticket for $5 worth of car gas, clothes purchased on clearance and of course lots of candy!
- Leave a trail of jelly beans or candy kisses from their rooms to their Easter baskets.
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Easter Kisses
Put some Hershey Kisses or chocolate chips in a plastic bag and attach the following poem:
This cute little bunny has hopped all day
Been delivering baskets for the holiday.
His paws are so tired and his little nose itches.
He left you something special?something to fill all your wishes.
These cute little hugs and Easter kisses. -
Put 1 Pound Jelly Beans into a bag and attach this poem:
RED is for the blood He gave.
GREEN is for the grass He made.
YELLOW is for the sun so bright.
ORANGE is for the edge of night.
BLACK is for the sins we made.
WHITE is for the grace he gave.
PURPLE is for His hour of sorrow.
PINK is for our new tomorrow.
A bag full of jelly beans colorful and sweet,
Is a prayer, is a promise, is a special treat. -
Easter Carrot Treats
Buy disposable plastic decorating bags and fill them with orange jellybeans or cheese balls. Then stick some green Easter grass in the top of the bag (leave some hanging out) and secure the bag with a rubber band and then ribbon so that it resembles a carrot.
Our family of 6 happen to be out of town one Easter Holiday and it had not occured to me before we left that the holiday was approaching. So I found a store nearby and purchaed caps for my sons and cute inexpensive summer purses for my daughters and filled it with things like chap stick, CD’s body wash, things young preteens/teenagers might like and of course some candy.Turned the caps over and filled with the boy’s goodies, opened the purses and filled it with the girls goodies, and we had Easter suprises even though we were not home and they were able to use their baskets after the holiday. The kids enjoyed it and their baskets were useful afterwards.
That is a neat idea Gina even if you aren’t out of town. It would be especially good for preteens and teenagers like you said. They are too old for the “cute” baskets but at the same time are still kids at heart and shouldn’t be left out.
I have taken empty ice cream buckets and decorated them with construction paper and stickers to use for baskets.
I just love the jelly bean Easter poem! We have never done Easter baskets for our kids, although each year they would get a chocolate bunny and some marshmallow peeps to nibble on. I think I’ll do jellybeans this year with the poem. Also it will be nice to have around extras as my 17 year old son brings home several friends on a regular basis–like 4 or 5 times a week! I can hand them out to his friends, too.
I should add that the reason we don’t do the Easter baskets is to focus on Christ’s crucifixion and ressurection. Our teenagers just don’t get the whole Easter bunny thing and I am thankful for that.
I hate using the grass you buy for Easter because it seems to cling to everything and later gets wound up in the vacuum. I use my paper shredder and any colorful paper that comes my way such as the funny papers, magazines, colored junk mail, etc. Great way to recycle. After Easter, I further recycle the paper as flower pot mulch for my patio pots to help conserve water.
You can easily make your own candies. I purchased a plastic mold that had lots of little shapes like eggs, bunnies and crosses. I then use my Michaels or JoAnns coupons to get chocolate 40% off. I like to buy a multi color pack so I can paint little features in the mold before filling with chocolate.
I also saved the plastic image from a purchased bunny years ago. Now I can make my own chocolate bunnies. Since chocolate is the most expensive part of making the bunnies, I mix things we like into the chocolate to make it stretch further like rice crispies, coconut, nuts, raisins, trail mix…whatever I have on hand or found at a great sale. If it seems lumpy, pour a little chocolate into the mold and tilt around until it is covered, let harden a few minutes in the refrigerator and then fill.
Birds nests are super easy to make and very pretty. Mix coconut into melted chocolate and using a tablespoon make blobs on some wax paper. Make a little indent and put in 3 jelly beans. Tasty and very cute!
Melted chocolate can be piped into any size and shape on wax paper. Put a nice picture underneath and trace the image. Use the same or different color of chocolate to fill in the image. I often do this to make “fuzzy bunnies”. I pipe out some white chocolate (only kind my daughter eats) into a basic shape of a bunny and while still wet sprinkle with finely shredded coconut. I have also used colored sugar (couple drops food color into regular sugar and shaken well in a baggie) or sprinkles and used an M&M as the eye and a mini marshmallow as the tail.
Put a marshmallow on a popsicle stick and dip in melted chocolate and then roll in sprinkles, colored sugar, finely chopped nuts, coconut etc.
Other edible basket fillers, fruit, roll ups, granola bars, cut out cookies, craft paper, scissors and glue.
Re. Easter basket ideas for teens: FYI, $5 will only get you about a gallon of gas in the Chicagoland area.
Hello all,
I live in Brazil, and here Easter is very different than what it’s like in the US. Here we give people huge easter chocolate eggs, and the whole Easter hunt isn’t explored. What I always do with my kids and nephews is I leave different clues throughout the house and garden for them. If they don’t know how to read yet, I draw. With each clue I leave little gifts that are healthier and cheap, like a carved candied apple filled with grapes, or decorated carrots. I also leave a little treasure box filled with coins and colored rocks. If I find coins from different countries even better. Their final prize is the big chocolate egg.
Naiana, what neat ideas. It is always so much fun to hear not only how people do things differently here but especially from other countries. Love hearing your ideas.
one thing about the easter season i like is that the eggs are really cheap ..we eat alot of eggs .. (or so it seems we do) .. and the savings is great ..
also, i like the holiday bc of the resurrection aspects of it .. (not sure if i can talk religion bc some sites u cant) ..
but it makes me dwell on the good things of my life and how thankful i am .. (i think of these things often but more so bc of the meaning of what the holiday is) (well to me it is) ..
thanks for posting this ..
I love these ideas. I am going to use the jelly bean idea for our youth group. Thanks so much.
We always use the same Easter basket year after year. It means buying a better one the first year, but not having to buy another one, ever. Yes, you have to store them, but many of us also store a few Easter decorations. The baskets can hold the decorations in the box. It’s a fun tradition. As the kids get older and get out of bed before we do, they don’t have to guess which basket is theirs. They see a familiar one sitting on the table waiting for them.
Glenna we use the same ones over and over too. It is kind of funny because the kids got attached to them kinda like their favorite blanky and didn’t really want a new one each year which is nice.
Back when I was a child and went to church we always got a new easter hat and that was filled with the goodies.
We needed the hats for church so they had to be bought anyway so it did double duty.
Last easter I had the grandchildren here so I bought hats for the 3 and filled them with candy and toys.
A pink baseball cap that said fisher girl and a camouflage cap for the oldest and a Tigger cap for the youngest. They loved them better than the candy.
If you buy new shoes for easter use those as baskets.
thats a good idea grandma ..
and we also used to save and re-use the easter baskets every year ..
one lady i met at the laundromat said every year she was able to get free shoe boxes (not the lids just the box) and she used to cover them in a spring/easter wrapping paper .. and then fill the box up with all sorts of candies and toys .. one box for all but the toys she used to label for each child ..
i thought that was a cute idea too ..
[...] comes from Living On A Dime and gives lots of alternatives to use INSTEAD of the traditional Easter basket, as well as ideas for [...]
I take square 1/2 gallon milk containers. cut in half…use the upper half to make a handle..attach the handle to the bottom base of the milk container. cover with construction paper. Decorate with stickers or have the kids color the baskets..fill with green Easter grass,and have a Easter egg hunt to fill with the goodies..
Just for laughs, even though my children always find all the Easter eggs at the hunt we have ar our house, we refill several eggs and put them around the house for the days following Easter. Last year, my son was looking for these, and instead found a very small wild rabbit, in which they, my daughter included, kept for a day (but wanted to keep as a pet). Then they wanted a domestic rabbit for a pet, and my husband and I agrred to get them one if they researched everything that they would need. They did! They read about every “rabbit” book at the library, and took notes! It bonded them together, in an answer to my prayers! God is so creative inn how He answers prayers! Now, we have two rabbits, one for each child, and they still have a common bond through these rabbits, and through caring for these creature’s daily and weekly needs! Though the dailiness of life, God is answering prayers!
Because my two children that are still at home are alittle too old (19 & 14) for a easter egg hunt, we decided this year, instead of dying eggs, we are going to make Easter cupcakes and share some with our neighbors.
Also wanted to share that a co-worker of mine that is very short on funds and can’t afford large Easter Baskets and all the trimmings is planning to take her kids to church on Sunday and after church they are heading to the park for a picnic and a easter egg hunt. She will take lots of pictures of the kids and then they will scrapbook the pictures together as a family.