Easy Ways to Have Easter Without the Mess

The secular customs of Easter can cause a real mess. All that plastic grass, egg shells, and don't forget the traditional dye stains from egg coloring. If you are sick of the mess, than try some new things this year.

Can it really be Easter without all those washed out plastic grass pieces stuffed at the bottom of an Easter basket? Let's be reasonable here. It is not biodegradable, pets and small children can easily choke on it, and you'll be finding it in the rug until next Easter. Don't succumb to it this year. There are plenty of other options that will be easier to clean up. You can use colored cotton, which is readably available around Easter, to stuff the inner basket with. Another option is just using tissue paper in its original form, which will provide easy clean up. But the best way to pack an Easter basket is to buy one that is just big enough to fit all of the candy in the basket without extra space; kids and adults will like this much better than a basket with 50% Easter grass.

So, what about the coloring of the eggs? Well, you can cut down on mess considerably if you do it yourself, but your children will be very disappointed. If you don't want to skip this tradition, than you'll do better to create a workstation for this project. Don't use red food coloring, however. Red is the most likely to land on your carpet and stain it than blue, yellow, or green. Purple is also a hazardous color as it involves mixing red, so avoid this also. But if you really want to evade the coloring of eggs this year, you can try a few 'dry' activities. Have your children fill up plastic eggs with candies, and forego the coloring of eggs in exchange. You can then 'hid' them in strategic locations and then have them find them again for another activity. And if they didn't forget the decorating of eggs, than you can buy small stickers (they have to be small so they can adhere to the roundness of the eggs surface without buckling) and let them have a ball making faces or designs this way.

If you love Easter baskets, but hate to do them yourself, than you might want to rethink this. Pre-made Easter baskets come with plastic grass and cellophane wrapping. There is no trick to these over-priced items. All you need to do to make one yourself is head to a dollar store, pick up a small basket that will easily fit all the goodies you want to place in it, and find some decorative Easter shape foamies. Foamies are inexpensive and make great 'stuffers' inside a basket and cheerful decorations outside of it. Simply hot glue gun them on to the front of the basket, add your treats to the inside of the basket, and then throw in a foamie over into a few empty spaces, and voila! you have yourself a great Easter basket. Making your own basket will allow you to skip the plastic grass, cut out the wasteful cellophane, and make it more personal-not to mention saving you money.