Easter Ideas

Looking for ways to put your personal touch on an Easter basket this year? We have a whole bunch of super awesome DIY Easter basket ideas right here!

DIY Easter Basket Ideas

Calling all crafters! When it comes to gifting anything for the holidays, the creative-minded always enjoy putting their personal touch on gifts, whether it’s something decorative on the gift or made by hand entirely. Easter is no different!

The Basket

Of course, you can always use a basket that you bought for a buck, but that’s boring when you can simply make your own and make it awesome! Here are some ideas on how to decorate your own Easter basket.

Personalized Easter Baskets with Each Child’s Name

Personalizing an Easter basket with names is a great way to help each child know which basket belongs to who! Simply use hot glue to affix wooden or foam letters to the basket after you’ve painted them or decorated however you want! You can get these letters at

Tulle and ribbon

Tulle and ribbon make for great ways to decorate a basket, whether you’re making bows for the basket or wrapping the materials around the basket to change the appearance. Using tulle, you can even give the basket a little tutu around the outside, cute!

Paper Mache Easter Baskets

Paper mache allows you to make pretty much anything, all you really need is time, lots of glue and lots of newspaper. Using a large mixing bowl as your basket form, coat with cooking spray for easy removal, and begin layering all of those newspaper strips until you have a nice, thick basket! Let dry for a day or two before attempting to remove. It should feel hard to the touch when ready. This is a really cute tutorial:

Easter Basket Themes

If you are sticking with a theme, then the basket is perhaps the most important part of the theme. Be sure to think of ways to use the theme’s colors. For example, if you’re doing a Mickey Mouse theme, you might consider painting the basket red with a black handle and rim, giving it black Mickey Mouse ears on top, a ring of yellow along the bottom, and a couple of white buttons on the front.

The Kiddie Pool Easter Basket

Sometimes a regular basket just isn’t big enough, and I absolutely love this idea for a spring activity themed “basket.” To make the pool look like an oversized basket, simply stand up a large hula hoop to look like a handle and that’s it! Hint: You can use duct tape or place a heavier item on the hoop to keep it standing.

Exquisite Easter Edibles

Ditch the idea of buying candy for your basket arrangements and adopt the idea of making fun treats for Easter baskets instead! Not only can it be cheaper, allowing you to make bigger batches than you would be buying in-store, but it’s also much more fun!

Easter Chocolate Molds

Rather than buying a big, chocolate bunny, you can buy chocolate molds and make one yourself! The best part is, you can customize it with different colors, and put the finishing touches on it such as a mini hat or a ribbon bow around the neck!

Easter “Cracker Carrots”

Fill clear, disposable cake decorating bags with an orange treat (Goldfish, Annie’s cheddar bunnies, and cheetos work well!) and tie it off with green ribbon for the tops of the carrots, making sure to use a few green ribbons to look like the tops of the carrot.

Bunny Droppings

This is a not-so-fancy name for chocolate-covered raisins or peanuts, and I’m sure you can guess why! It’s easy-peasy, too! All you do is melt a ¼ cup of dark chocolate chips (or milk chocolate, white chocolate, and butterscotch work too) with ½ tbsp of coconut oil in a double boiler, stirring until there are no clumps. Add your peanuts or raisins, coating entirely. Spoon them onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and place in freezer for about 10 minutes to harden, break apart and voila!

Rock candy carrots

Everyone is familiar with rock candy, but they often don’t realize how easy it is to make! You can either buy orange rock candy premade and decorate like a carrot, or you can DIY like this:

(recipe makes 4)

1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in saucepan
2. Stir in tons of sugar until it no longer dissolves (this will take about 4-6 cups of sugar. A lot, I know!)
3. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.
4. Ladle liquid into 4 champagne flutes and add orange food coloring (the more saturated, the better!)
5. Place wooden skewers standing straight up in the flutes, using the clothespin to secure it in the middle and keep it from touching the bottom or sides.
6. Day by day, you’ll see the crystals forming on the skewer, and after about a week, they’re ready to remove, dry, and wrap up!

Chocolate-covered fruit

For a healthier and yet still easy DIY idea, consider coating various kinds of berries or fruit in chocolate to serve in the Easter basket. Mmmmmm

Dozen egg-sortment box

Save a (clean) carton from a dozen eggs and line each cup with half a plastic Easter egg. Plastic cartons are ideal as they can easily be cleaned before use. Fill each egg with something different, such as:

• Mini colorful marshmallows
• Peeps
• M&Ms
• Robin eggs
• Cadbury eggs

You can fill the eggs with pretty much anything you can, but candy, stickers and little toys are definitely the big hits with the kids.

Rainbow peep pops

Buy all of the colors of Peeps and place one of each color on a skewer, going in order of the rainbow spectrum. Wrap with cellophane and tie off with festive ribbon! It’s a fun spin on peeps rather than just putting the box of them in the basket.

Easter sugar cookies

If you’re good with baking, icing, and decorating, then consider using your favorite sugar cookie recipe to bake a batch of bunny or egg-shaped cookies and decorate for the holiday! And don’t worry about buying pastel food coloring. Mix a small bit of food coloring you have on hand with white frosting and voila, pastel food coloring.

Marshmallow / Caramel popcorn balls

This recipe is easy to follow and has great reviews, just be sure to add in some of the rainbow marshmallows with the popcorn when you go to form the balls for a more colorful presentation! As kids, we made these all the time and they were wonderful! Best of all, they’re inexpensive to make!

Candy nests

For this, you need 2 cups of chow mein noodles and a cup of light cocoa melts. Melt the cocoa in a double boiler until there are no chunks, let cool until you can handle it without getting burned, then add the chow mein noodles, coating evenly.using a mixing spoon, drop spoonfuls of the “nest material” onto a sheet lined with parchment paper, shaping them with your hands to look like bird nests. Add some kind of egg-shaped candy or jelly beans in the middle to act as eggs for the ultimate finishing touch! Place in fridge to cool completely.

Bunny baby food

If your child is still in the infant stages or even a toddler, consider purchasing eco-friendly refillable food pouches and making a few different kinds of yummy baby food combinations to put in the basket. Make sure to refrigerate anything that should be refrigerated! The below video reviews the Weesprout’s Reusable Food Pouches.

Get the Weesprout’s Reusable Food Pouches on Amazon.

Fun Activities for the Easter Basket

An Easter basket isn’t an Easter basket without fun things to do! Finding basket-stuffers doesn’t have to break the bank, in fact, a lot of fun things can be made with supplies that you already have around the house! Here are some ideas that are loved among all kiddos:

Homemade Play-Doh

Making homemade Play-Doh is fun and easy! The following is my absolute favorite recipe which comes the closest to the texture and consistency to the real deal, of any recipe I’ve tried. It keeps well forever as long as you keep it in a sealed in a food storage bag! You need

Ingredients for Homemade Play Dough

• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup salt
• 1 cup water
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil (I use vegetable)
• food coloring
• glitter (optional).

Steps to Make Homemade Play Dough

1. In a saucepan, mix flour, salt, water, cream of tartar, cooking oil, and food coloring over medium heat, stirring constantly.
2. You will notice it getting hard to stir, keep stirring until it forms a single lump of dough.
3. Remove from pot and knead on floured surface.
4. Flatten and add glitter, if desired.
5. Tthen knead the glitter throughout the mixture.

Slime

Every kid loves the texture of slime! It’s just gross and cool! Your best bet to find a suitable recipe is to look around online, because a lot of the recipes contain ingredients that not every parent will want in their slime such as borax, laundry detergent, or liquid starch. Most of the recipes are very easy, no matter what ingredients are involved! Here’s an example you can use:

Excavation kits

We’ve all seen those excavation kits in stores where kids can dig for rocks and fossils, but they are expensive! Make your own Easter basket size versions using small food storage containers, plaster, play sand, water, and small toys or stones.

Mix together 4 cups of sand with ¼ cup of plaster, then add ¼ cup of water mixing well. Fill containers half way, packing tightly, add the small toys or stones, then fill the containers the rest of the way, packing mixture down. Allow to dry uncovered until hardened, best to let it sun dry. Your DIY kits should also include excavating tools, in which a plastic butter knife and a paint brush work well!

Egg shakers

Fill plastic Easter eggs with various different substances such as rice, beans, buttons, bells, etc and glue shut with super glue. Shake shake shake! Kids love these things, but make sure they don’t start throwing them! Also, make sure the plastic eggs you buy are pretty decent quality. Over the years, I’ve learned there are vast differences in the thickness of the different brands of plastic eggs!

Funky crayons

Using oven safe silicone molds with shape of choice, break up various colors of crayons, making sure to use the same brand of crayon so they melt evenly. You can choose to put a bunch of random colors in each mold or organize by color group to have a more consistent color. Melt in oven on 150 degrees fahrenheit for about 20 minutes, or until the crayons have melted completely. Let cool before removing! (I like to stick mine in the freezer for a bit.)

Tutu

Tutus are easy to make, and all it takes is some colorful tulle and a piece of elastic the size of the waist you’re making it for! Here’s a great tutorial for making a really adorable one!

Cape

Using fabric of choice, a glue gun (if you plan on adding embellishments), a sewing machine (or double-sided fabric tape if you’re not good with the machine), and a piece of Velcro, you can very easily make a cape! Go the extra mile and make a matching mask to go over the eyes!

Texture balloons

Great for sensory play, fill balloons with different textures. I like the following:

• Rice
• Beans
• Sand
• Flour
• Flour with a little water
• Flour with a little air
• And lentils.

When tying the balloons, they should be full enough to where you don’t have to try to get air out of them, about the size of an extra-large egg. For the flour one with air, give it a quick and small blow, pinch it off and tie it. Use all different color balloons for fun, or balloons that go with your basket theme!

Wipe-clean activities

Find self-adhesive laminating sheets at any stationary store or in a stationary aisle at a department store. Online, you can find anything you want with dotted lines, from shapes to letters and numbers! Print them out small enough to fit inside the laminating sleeves and include some dry-erase markers of various colors, and voila!

With all of these fun DIY Easter basket ideas, your kids will surely have the coolest Easter baskets on the block! Your heart will feel so full seeing their sheer happiness playing with everything that you poured your heart and soul into. You’ll even want to join in on all of the fun!