[Easter] Sunday's Coming!

Last week was my birthday which means....Easter is on its way!  Just a little less than a month until Easter and I'm deciding what things we want to do to celebrate and decorate around the house.  Here are a few Easter ideas I'm totally loving:

1) Grow Your Own Easter Grass

(Picture from Zakka Life)

The number one Easter idea I am TOTALLY loving this year is growing your own Easter grass. Who wants that plastic, stringy stuff anyway? It's just going to end up in the trash. Plus it's a choking hazard for both my dogs and my kiddo. When you're done, juice it or compost it.

Basic how-to:
1) Pick a pretty basket
2) Line the bottom with foil or plastic. Add a thin layer of potting soil
3) Sprinkle some rye or wheat grass seeds on the surface
4) Water and keep warm

Sustainable. Pretty. Non-plastic.  I'm sold!  We're actually heading to the nursery tomorrow to get seeds so we can start growing our grass baskets this week.


2) Make Smashable Easter Eggs

 

I've posted about this before. Mostly because I think it is so GENIUS. Shape these like eggs instead of rocks and you have a seriously fun Easter activity on your hands.  I am a little concerned about what to put in them since we don't really do little junk plastic toys. So maybe coupons to trade in for cool stuff?  Our son is a little too young for this idea this year so I've got another year or too to keep this on the back burner, but I love it so much I want to share it. You can get to tutorial for how to make these "treasure stones" on Skip to My Lou's blog.



3) Refashion Old Clothes

Picture and cardigan refashion tutorial from Tatertots & Jello

In thinking about practical ways of illustrating the Easter story of something dead coming back to life, I love the idea of refashioning old "dead" clothing into something vibrant and sassy and new. It's the grown up version of Sunday School Easter crafts. If Easter is a part of your family's spiritual traditions, I think the whole act of working on this project would be a great one for meditating on the death/ressurection of Christ and how God needs to take our lifeless spirits and tear them apart and reconstruct them in order to make them brand new and way improved.

If you're looking for ideas for refashioned clothing, I've got a Pinterest board in progress full of ideas and tutorials I love here.  If you are interested in an especially destructive/reconstructive (but still simple enough for beginning sewists) project, check out Emma's guest tutorial on Cait Creates for an adorable bow-sleeved tee from a plain long sleeved one.



4) Meaningful Easter Baskets

If your family does Easter baskets, instead of filling them with plastic eggs filled with candy and plastic trinkets that will either become embedded in the bottom of Dad's foot or end up in a landfill, think about spending the same amount of money but filling them with more meaningful, practical gifts instead.  Maybe dad gets fishing gear and your son gets books.

If you still want to do an egg hunt instead of just presenting gift baskets, put coupons for the different items in the eggs instead. You can do general presents for useful things like soaps, nail polish (piggy paints are my fave!) that everyone can trade with each other later after they've cashed in for their goodies.  Or, if you have specific gifts picked out for specific people, you can color-coordinate the hunt. So if your son's eggs are green but your daughter's are yellow, not only do they have the challenge of finding eggs, but of finding their eggs (and leaving their sibling's eggs alone).  Which would also help make it easy to tailor one big egg hunt for kids in varying age ranges. Your two year old's eggs might be spread out on the lawn but your 12 year old's are hiding in trees and behind rocks.


These are some of the ideas we're doing this year (or at least saving til next year when the baby is a little older). Do you have fun Easter ideas you're thinking about? Any fun family traditions you do every year?  One of the things I love about having our new little family is being able to re-invent our traditions to be the way we want them to be.  I'd love to hear your ideas!