What is eco friendly about Easter? Hmmm…not much. Cheap plastic eggs, plastic grass, candy with too much sugar and loaded with artificial coloring and flavors…. well at least most Easter egg hunts take place in the great outdoors. That is a start.
One of the first steps to having a greener and more eco friendly Easter is too make your own baskets. The ones you can by at the supermarket or Wal-Mart are just a bunch of cheap crap I find. It is not hard to gather little toys and healthy candies to make a quality basket on your own. In fact you can even grow real grass for them. Or use a paper shredder and shred some paper you have around the house. I also found really pretty paper grass you can buy too.
Don’t want to make your own basket? Check out these natural and fair trade Easter baskets.
Next up…consider ditching those conventional egg dying kits and dye your own eggs using natural coloring techniques. I wrote a post about this last year with instructions. But in general here is what you use for colors:
For pink and red colored eggs use cranberry juice, beets, or raspberries.
For yellow eggs use saffron or turmeric
For purple eggs use red wine.
For blue eggs use red cabbage leaves or blueberries.
For brown eggs use grape juice, rosehip tea, or coffee.
For orange eggs use yellow onion skins.
You can also use wool eggs! These are sooooo cute. Make your own or buy some from a 
mom knitter. Here is another cool link using plastic eggs as a form to make wool ones….you are still buying the plastic eggs but they will last for years with a nice wool covering on them.
They don’t have candy in them but… hey that’s a GOOD thing. And they are more expensive but they can be reused again every year. Have your kids find them and trade them in for some treat of your choosing. But make sure keep track of everywhere you hid them because you’ll want to pick up any they didn’t find.
Also, make sure to invest in quality baskets that you can reuse every year. I have an Easter basket collection going in my basement so in a week or so when I start to put my baskets together I will just go down there and grab a couple.
Perhaps the biggest struggle for natural parents on Easter is candy. I know I can’t afford to slip up too much with unhealthy treats or my kids will have a melt down…especially my daughter…it isn’t pretty. There is nothing like a beautiful little princess in her Sunday best throwing herself on the ground in a tantrum because she wants one more Tootsie Roll.
For healthier candy options try these:
Fruitabu Organic Smooshed Fruit Rolls
Squirrels Nest
Non-candy treats and gifts consider:
Pineapple Flavored – Recyced Pencils
Soybean Crayons
Basura Coin Purse
Homemade Play Dough, Bubbles, or Silly Putty
Have a happy and green Easter everyone!
