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!
We always got a new dress and underwear for easter. I was so non-commercialized that I would be surprised when people would ask what I got for easter. Gifts? Candy? Huh?
Naturally dyeing eggs is a lot of fun, and if you have ducks or geese, the larger eggs are even easier for kids to decorate.
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These are some wonderful ideas for Easter. I especially like the naturally dyed eggs – the colors are so beautiful. Thanks for all the suggestions!
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Great ideas for a Green Easter!!!
Great post and thanks so much for the links. I’m emailing you now!
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I really enjoyed your article and think your blog is fantastic! We are already planning for a semi Natural Easter celebration and will be able to do so to an even greater extent with ease -thanks to you! :D
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Yay for green Easter! Other treats to put inside Easter eggs (see my last comment about the grief I got for years about not putting candy in my daughter’s Easter basket):
– organic raisins (if your kiddo is old enough not to choke on them)
– organic mini pretzels
– stickers
– pom-poms, pipe cleaners and other arts & crafts kind of supplies (I used to buy a couple bags of things and then use them year after year in successive baskets. It sort of became a tradition she’d look forward to creating new Easter crafts and adding to her collection.)
– money (like quarters for a state collection)
– loving notes (“You’re somebunny special to me!”)
– natural lip balm (or lip gloss, depending on your kiddo’s age and gender)
– seeds to plant
I love making Easter baskets! As my daughter got to be about 5 or so, she started to enjoy getting her own bottles of “fancy” natural shampoo, soaps, toothpaste, etc in her basket, too.
Similar to your suggestion to give egg-shaped chalk, we like to make egg-shaped rainbow crayons by melting down the old broken ones and pouring into molds.
Eco Friendly Easter…
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….
I especially like the idea of coloring eggs with natural dyes. I haven’t dyed an egg in years, but now I want to dip some in beets and tea just to see how they’d turn out. We will definitely link to this post on our upcoming Easter article!
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HI! Great post! THanks for sharing. ;)
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Oh I love the pattern for the knitted eggs! We reuse our Easter baskets every year, we’ll be potting wheatgrass inside for decoration and for the baskets I’ve got them each two Beatrix Potters (Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, The Flopsy Bunnies and Squirrel Nutkin) and have knit them each a bunny from The Easter Craft Book. Homemade holidays can truly be the nicest. Oh, I’ll add some chocolate eggs in there too.
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There are actually lots of organic alternatives to easter candy and also organic dried fruits. Papaya is extremely sweet for any sugar addicts in the family. Spring toys also make up good easter baskets. Bubbles, silly puddy, sidewalk chalk and outdoor games would make an awesome easter basket.
Thank you for the great ideas! We made the edible play dough today and it was really fun. I even did a post on it :)
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I have a little something to add. My mother had 8 kids and hated the plastic (or paper) grass getting all over the house. And as kids we didn’t like it much either … it just took up space in the basket.
Well, my mom had the ultimate solution. When I was a teen my mother stopped using grass entirely, and instead filled the bottom of the basket with popcorn. Popcorn (lightly or un-buttered and light to no salt) is a healthy treat, and it makes a kid feel like they got more in their basket at little to no extra cost. And it’s a LOT less messy. I use it now for my son and he loves it, and I don’t have to deal with plastic or paper strings all over my house.
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Thanks for the useful comments. I’m going to link to them from my blog and website over at http://www.biggreenpurse.com.
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I recently saw a great idea to make Easter baskets out of 4 lire milk jugs (gallon jugs for you Americans!) They left the handle on and cut a hole in the front and put paper bunny ears on it and made it look like a bunny. You could also just cut the whole top off and uset he bottom “bucket” part with some braided yarn or something for the handle. Whe I showed this idea to my kids, they were so excited about making their Easter baskets instead of buying them!
This year we are going to make a braided, sweet easter bread with bits of candied fruit in it and, again, the kids are so excited. I think if you focus on the traditions that you do with your family, the kidsdon’t even miss not having all the sugar! Especially if you start them young and they don’t know any different!
I think it’s shameful that companies are trying to make Easter the new Christmas…pressuring parents to buy their kids bigger and bigger toys to celebrate Easter.
A great idea that my friend does is put a new toothbrush in her kids basket.
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Hi! I order from this place all the time and am very pleased to share. They have great kosher organic and natural food products including yummy earth candies and lollipops.
Here is a link http://www.wholeandnatural.com
Enjoy!!!
p.s. I used a code try if it works for you bldc08
We are planning to throw a larger Easter Egg Hunt (Over 100 children) at a park, and we want to be eco-friendly. We just don’t know how based on the number of kids. It just seems more feasible to buy plastic eggs and candy, and most of the people attending this event do not have much money, so they won’t be able to donate much to cover the cost. Any eco-friendly easter egg hunt ideas for large groups would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jeffrey Harry
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Fabulous ideas. Thank you!
Thanks for all the suggestions! I can’t stand all the cheap toys, and all the candy (that doesn’t even taste good!!) Me and my girls are going to try to color some eggs this easter, and maybe make some candy on our own.
Instead of toys that get broken we buy our girls Easter books that we can read every year. They love books and I love reading them. Now my oldest is reading so I know she will enjoy reading them to all of us for a change. Once the girls outgrow the books, we can hand them down to younger family members or friends with young ones. However, these books should be good for many more years and explain the reason we celebrate Easter. For candy, I chose Organic Dark Chocolate candy bars which my girls absolutely LOVE!
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Great article…real eye-opener! We try so hard to be green and I am sort-of a newbie at it…I never even gave it a second thought on Easter! YIKES! I am thankful to read such great ideas here. We have an especially difficult time with “candy holidays” because our 4 yr old has always had severe food allergies and could not handle sugars of any kind (natural or synthetic). Thankfully God has healed him through a special kids probiotic we found and we do not have to worry so much about ingredients for the purpose of Eczema prevention. However, that said, we have changed our ways as a family because of this…we read all kinds of labels now and work really hard to eat healthy whole foods snacks and meals. BTW our kids LOVE the smooshed fruit/fruit-a-boo snacks….yummy, healthy and convenient for lunch boxes! Thanks for the ideas! Caroline *mom of 2 (one with a missing front tooth…and the other healed from Eczema – yay for Zorbee!)
Here it is Easter, already, but I wanted to add a tip! We filled a real egg shell with organic jelly beans for our daughter to crack open– using a needle, I poked a hole in the bottom of an uncooked egg, and slowly picked at the opening until it was big enough for a jelly bean, then let the egg drain out after “scrambling” it with a wooden skewer. I but the empty shell in simmering water for about 10 minutes and then let it dry completely inside. I stuffed in the jelly beans and covered the opening with a sticker. My daughter sure had fun cracking into the egg, and was definitely surprised when jelly beans fell out! God Bless you all this beautiful Easter day!
I’m all about being natural and all, but some people take it too far. Come on! No candy on Easter? So many kids with parents like these end up miserable in their childhood because their all-natural, all-organic, paranoid moms feed them the vegetable-granola crap instead of a chocolate bunny. And although that’s a wise choice, it’s no fun. I’m glad I got candy on Easter when I was little. That was the highlight of the day. People just need to come down and let their kids live a little, instead of creating all these lame alternatives.
Any studies on exactly how miserable kids are if we don’t give them candy with petro chemicals, articifial flavors, and tons of sugar? Or is this your persona,l opinion? I don’t any kids miserable on natural, healthy sugars…honey, agave, fruit, etc.
Kind of reminds me of the candy-deprived Willy Wonka. (Remember his horrible father?) The resemblance is uncanny…
I don’t know, my point was just that some parents are a little TOO paranoid, that’s all.
If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, you can also buy wooden eggs from Casey’s Wood products (US) or Bear Wood (CAN) that are super durable and reasonably priced. They can even be dyed with RIT dye (check website for how to).
I love your ideas, thanks for posting. For us, Easter is the most important holiday of the year- so it’s nice to get a reminder that we can make if good for our souls and good for our earth! I love that your suggestions are also family projects. When I was a child, our Easter baskets did not appear- we worked on them together. I am going to have a blast trying these suggestions with my girls. They are going to think dyeing eggs with beets and coffee is hilarious!