Most of you probably have dozens, if not dozens and dozens, of those plastic eggs from years past. They can be filled with items other than candy. I am trying to have a candy-free Easter this year. I will probably end up tossing a few jelly beans in their baskets for good measure, but my mother-in-law always goes way overboard with the candy, and despite my pleas to reduce the sugar the sugar remains. Last year I placed all the candy on the scale and it weighed nearly 5 pounds! In the end most of it got tossed or eaten by Mom and Dad. I hate to waste the money by tossing candy and I really don’t want to be eating it this year. So here are some ideas that I came up with that I might use for my candy-free (for the most part!) Easter baskets.

I do recycle the baskets we have in the basement so and that saves a good bit of money too. The following are mere ideas… add to them as you wish!

• Arts and crafts basket
  Fill basket with green grass. Put the following in plastic eggs:
  • pom-poms
  • googly eyes
  • mini craft hole punches
  • buttons
  • paper clips
  • foam pieces
  • Play Doh, either store bought or home-made!
  For the basket, choose from the following:
  • crayons
  • markers
  • colored paper
  • white paper (in different sizes)
  • glue sticks
  • small bottles of glue
  • paint brushes
  • paints
  In our house we run out of glue, paper, and other crafty stuff around this time of year. Markers dry out, crayons break… so while this may not be the least expensive basket it will be a worthwhile basket!
• Gardening Basket
  I plan on doing this for one or all three children!
  • Fill basket with terra cotta pots and little gardening tools that are found at Target for a very good price.
  • Fill the plastic eggs with dirt and seeds (separately). Use the seeds to grow herbs, such as parsley, cilantro, basil, rosemary that can then be placed in to larger pots and reused over the summer. Use these herbs in recipes all summer long!
• Outdoor/Summer Fun Basket
  Fill your child’s basket with any number of the following:
  • bubbles
  • chalk (I’ve seen chalk that comes in Easter Egg shapes)
  • shovels and other beach digging tools
  • small plastic boats
  • small kites
  • small balls
  • flip flops
  • sunglasses
  • sunscreen
  • chapstick
• Newborn – 12-month-old basket
  My mother-in-law made these baskets for my kids when they were wee little ones. I have always loved these very useful baskets!
  • baby toy, rattle or chew toy
  • feeding spoons
  • jars of baby food
  • a bib (a duckie or chick would be great for Easter)
  • formula sticks
  • a baby bottle or sippy cup
  • a cute onesie
  • little socks or booties
  • cardboard book
  • Tylenol or Motrin (for teething!)
  • teething ring
• Jewelry Making Easter Basket
  Rebecca is huge into making jewelry these days. Fill plastic eggs with the following:
  • assorted beads of different shapes and sizes
  • memory wire for bracelets and necklaces
  • elastic, thin enough to use for beading
  • clasps, earring hooks, etc. (With the memory wire, clasps are not necessary as the wire maintains its circular shape)
  • a pair of pliers used to round off ends of wire

What other kinds of baskets can you come up with?

Jessica Ryan is a List-Loving Mom who is admittedly better at writing them than following them. A former freelance writer, she decided to put the professional world on hold to raise her three entertaining kids. Jessica was dubbed by some of her friends as the Entertaining Mom. Jessica has been blogging for about a year now, about her family and her life, documenting the good, the bad, and the funny!

Visit her blog, The Entertaining House