The best Easter basket is the one that you make yourself!
Store-bought Easter baskets can be pretty, but the Easter baskets that you make yourself are prettier and more meaningful. I loved bringing out the same handmade baskets every year when my kids were little, and now that they’re off at college and their Easter treats have to be sent by care package, I’m working on a set of smaller mailable baskets that give a similar vibe.
For an Easter basket that is heirloom-quality and made with love, check out my list, below, of my favorite free tutorials. Your only issue is going to figure out which one to make, because they are all perfect!
Tiny Easter Egg Basket
This is the cutest little basket, perfectly sized to hold a jumbo Easter egg or some small candies. I love it for table settings and for nestling into college student care packages.
Quilted Fabric Basket
This is my absolute favorite Easter basket to sew. Case in point: check out the version I sewed from a vintage quilt top for my niece!
Bucket
I’m actually making four of these very buckets this year to send to my daughters and their college roommates! I’m using upcycled pants legs for the exterior (gotta love that free bottomweight fabric!), upcycled bedsheets for the lining, and I want to personalize each one so I’m currently dithering over what fabric I want to use for that. I’ve got an old pair of white jeans in my scrap bag that might be just the thing, but I also have a bunch of upholstery samples that could be interesting to work with…
Easter Tote
I love the idea of making this tote for Easter, and then giving it to the kid for year-round storage. The tutorial calls for vinyl for the name applique, but it would be more eco-friendly to use felt or a similar non-woven fabric. You could even stencil the names onto the tote using high-quality fabric paint, or freehand the names using fabric puff paint.
Felt Easter Basket
You can do anything with felt! Honestly, I get more and more obsessed with its versatility every year. If you’ve got artsy kids who want to learn how to hand-sew, this would be a great project to share with them. Felt is easy to cut into the most intricate and creative shapes, and because it won’t fray it works well with hand-sewers of any ability.
Woven Fabric Basket
This is a great idea for using up your less favorite jellyroll strips, because when you incorporate them into a colorful cacophony, nobody will notice that they’re not as cute as the others!
No-Sew Easter Basket
I was so surprised to see that these Easter baskets don’t require any sewing! You just need fabric, batting, ribbon, yarn, and lots and lots of glue.
Mason Jars
This is a great solution if you’ve got houseguests for Easter, or if you want to set up something special for your favorite adults.
Stenciled Mason Jars
If you know that you won’t be using your Mason jars for anything other than dishing out Easter treats, you might as well make them even more festive!
Plarn Basket
If you’ve still got a bunch of plastic shopping bags kicking around, this is an awesome way to upcycle them. Bonus points for the extra colorful ones!
Basket Liner
Until I got it in my head to do even more sewing, for the first several years I simply repurposed two of my garden and egg-gathering baskets for my kids’ Easter, and honestly I LOVED it. It felt so Spring-like, and it was a fun reminder that our gardening and egg-gathering days were in the process of ramping back up. If you, too, like to repurpose a household basket for Easter, this basket liner is an easy way to make that everyday basket suddenly festive!
Egg Carton Labels
This is a great project if you want an entirely upcycled option or if you want something super light for mailing. If you don’t use store-bought eggs, ask around our hit up your local recycling center–those cardboard egg cartons are ubiquitous! Even the grey cardboard egg cartons are very paintable.
P.S. Looking for even more eco-friendly Easter baskets? Here you go!
P.P.S. Looking for more baskets in general? This is what you want!
