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More Than Chocolate Bunnies: Simple and Fun Kids’ Easter Basket Fillers (And Easter Egg Votives Giveaway!)

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Simple and Fun Easter Basket Filler Ideas

Ever since we began observing the liturgical year, we do it up big for Easter. After the 40 days of Lent, it’s time for the biggest party of the year in celebration of the Resurrection! We try to find ways to help our kids understand the Christian Year and having simple meals during Lent and then really celebrating with food and gifts for Easter helps them learn to participate in those seasons.

I thought it would be fun to share how we fill our kids’ Easter baskets and offer some simple ideas for fun fillers that are outside the box of typical sugary treats. So here we go!

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Easter Egg Votives by Toadily Handmade Beeswax Candles:

These are just too adorable and as soon as I saw them at Toadily Handmade, I had to have them! Each of our kiddos will have two candles in his/her Easter basket. Before I could put them away until Easter, the kids went wild over them and the two oldest picked out what colors they want (the baby will get the leftovers, but she won’t mind this year). After the kids find them in their baskets, I’ll put them up on our dining room table as our Eastertide centerpiece to enjoy at mealtimes. (I’ve mentioned before how much I love beeswax candles, it’s a bit of an obsession. You can see the beautiful candle from Toadily Handmade that is part of our Lenten centerpiece in this post. And I always order their Advent candle making kit.) To win your own set of 100% Beeswax Easter Egg Votives from Toadily Handmade Beeswax Candles see entry guidelines at the bottom of this post!

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(Little Lucy jammin’ on some Easter morning chocolate.)

Fair Trade Sweet Treats:

If there is a day to enjoy a sweet treat, it’s Easter Sunday! After weeks of simple lenten meals, we want to feast and celebrate! But we try to fill our baskets with fun gifts and treats that are free of food dyes and are fair trade. You can read all about the moral problems with many of the brands that produce chocolate and easy ways to find ethically-sourced chocolate candy in this great post at The Art of Simple. Usually we buy some small chocolate bunnies from a local chocolatier and I make some sweet goodies (last year it was coconut macaroons for my gluten-allergic kids). The truth is, fair trade chocolate is more expensive, so our chocolate bunnies are tiny, but the kids haven’t complained yet! 😉 We also stuff the baskets with Fruit Leather which the kids love and it’s just dried fruit, so I can’t feel too bad about that.

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(Last year’s baskets)

Picture Books:

We buy picture books and board books for the baskets that the kids can enjoy all year long. This year, our five-year-old son is getting The Story of St. Patrick, our two-year-old daughter is getting Lucia, Saint of Light (her name is Lucy), and the baby is getting a Daily Prayers board book from my favorite series of Catholic board books (St. Joseph’s Board Books).

Toys:

They will also each be getting a fun toy or activity: a Solar Print Kit for my outdoorsy boy, a St. Therese Paper Doll book for little Lucy who always wants to add “my fwend Saint Tuhwes de Widdle Fwower” to our nightly litany of the saints, and a Shining Light doll of Our Lady of Guadalupe for Baby Gwen Stellamaris (her middle name means Star of the Sea and I loved this little doll’s starry mantle).

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Accessories:

In the past we’ve bought sunglasses for our son and hair bows or shoes for the girls. For hair accessories, I love Lilla Rose hair jewelry (because it’s so sturdy) for little gals. I really like this pretty cross flexi-clip.

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(I won’t lie about being really excited that Baby Gwen will be big enough to wear this little hand-me-down Easter romper this year! I can’t believe how little Lucy looks in this picture!)

Giveaway Instructions:

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GIVEAWAY CLOSED

Disclosure: Toadily Handmade Beeswax Candles is a Carrots sponsor. They provided complimentary review product and giveaway product for the lucky winner. All opinions are my own and I only share about products I love. And links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Comments

  5. I think my favorite is the pumpkin votive: http://www.toadilyhandmadebeeswaxcandles.com/pumpkin-votive/ But that may be because I have a pumpkin patch (www.facebook.com/MaylandPumpkinPatch, for those who are interested). Still, I was mightily tempted to say the Easter egg votives are my favorite, because they are just gorgeous!

    Speaking of gorgeous, how adorable is Lucy in that Easter romper? I can’t wait to see a picture of Gwen in it!

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  8. Oh my gosh, I can’t even handle how much I love those candles!!! They’re glorious.
    Also, that doll for little miss Gwen is absolutely lovely.

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  9. As much as I’m in love with the Easter egg candles, the solid rose pillar candles have to be my favorite. So gorgeous!

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  11. I shared the Easter Egg Votive Page on my FB timeline.

    Also, just a note that I really enjoy your blog and thank you for all your posts! You share a part of your life with us and it is always very inspiring to me, especially as my husband and I are expecting our first child this September. Great ideas for bringing the faith into our daily life with our growing family! God Bless you!

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  28. My favorites are the DIY Sheets — I think that would be a fun date night activity with my husband who LOVES bees!

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  31. Pinned it – loved all the details in this post Haley! Besides really making me want real beeswax this time, you are inspiring me to think of Easter basket goodies early so I’m not just buying up the CVS aisles whatever I can get my hands on!

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  40. I love your blog! I found it when I was looking up Flannery O’Connor. I wish I could have been surrounded by moms like you when my 5 kids were little.

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  41. Not entering the giveaway, just let’s be honest for a second: those egg votives? Amazing.
    I don’t even have children yet, but I want all of these things for their Easters. A St. Therese paper doll book?! Whaaat? It is perfect! I may or may not be considering gifting myself with this….
    Thank you for this incredibly cute and inspiring Easter post. 4 weeks to go!

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  45. And I just noticed the wedding candle section on the website, the bell candle is just gorgeous! Had to pin that as well. I’ve loved beeswax candles since visiting a honey shop at a renaissance faire a couple years ago and i just recently ordered some to give out as favors to guests that came to my daughter’s baptism in January. I love spreading the beeswax word!

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  46. Really liked the hand rolled tapers, what a broad color selection and perfect any time of the year! Wow, found out they are located only 1 hour away from me too! 🙂

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  51. I don’t think I can pick a favorite. The eggs are absolutely adorable, but I also love all of the floating candle, especially the honeybee!

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  58. I think the Easter eggs are probably my favorite. Love the colors! And I appreciate the fact that they’re unscented. Pretty unscented candles are hard to come by.

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  60. The Easter egg votives are adorable. I pinned them as a great gift idea. Haley, I think I need to create a liturgical calendar board for all of your great ideas.

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  64. My favorites are the roll-your-own Advent candles. We had so much fun making and enjoying those this year!

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  68. My favorite product from Toadily Handmade Beeswax Candles is their advent candle kit. It was beautiful on our table this past advent. Would love to win the eggs!

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  79. We do similar things for our Easter baskets. Love those books! Another big hit with my kids? Stained glass coloring books like the ones below. We’ve done everything from intricate eggs to the life of Jesus to saints and cathedral windows:

    Eggs:
    http://www.amazon.com/Artful-Around-Stained-Coloring-Design/dp/0486480259/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1395258148&sr=8-3&keywords=stained+glass+coloring+book+easter

    Saints:
    http://www.amazon.com/Saints-Stained-Glass-Coloring-Holiday/dp/0486479099/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395258188&sr=8-1&keywords=stained+glass+coloring+book+jesus

    Cathedral windows:
    http://www.amazon.com/Cathedral-Stained-Glass-Coloring-Dover/dp/0486240274/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395258290&sr=1-4&keywords=stained+glass+coloring+book+cathedral

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  82. My favorite product is their rolled tapers. I bought that Advent Candle Kit last November (thanks you to, Haley!) and enjoyed making them with my family.
    http://www.toadilyhandmadebeeswaxcandles.com/beeswax-advent-candle-kit/

    My sister and I started a new tradition last year in which we have “Christmas craft day” on the Friday after Thanksgiving with our mom and our adult daughters. Three generation of crafting and family fellowship instead of participating in the secular retail madness. 🙂 These advent candles were a huge hit.

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  84. Okay so those candles are absolutely adorable. I went to order some… and then was very sad to see they don’t ship to Canada! 🙁 Hopefully winning will get them to me!

    Checked the site and the easter eggs are definitely my favourite!!

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  99. Oooh! count me in too, these are beautiful! I have to say, the eggs ARE my favorite, but I do like their Liturgical colored Advent candles, plus just the simple basic bees wax votives are so simple and sweet. I bet they smell amazing!

    And I love St. Lucia too 🙂 there’s a St. Lucia festival in kansas that my family has gone to that is so sweet, with all the kids singing and holding their candles. I love the concept that she brings light in the darkness.

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  115. My favorite are the detailed rose pillars. I think I’m going to pick some up for my two daughters’ First Holy Communion party next month. Wow. What a lovely art.

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  119. I definitely think the Easter egg votives are the cutest thing on the site! So much so that I bought a half dozen as an Easter present “for my husband.” If I win, they’ll be for my parents.

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  120. Haley, I have to say my favorite items from toadily handmade are any of the hand rolled items. I really like the honeycomb look in the pillar candles. So neat.

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  122. I also visited the website and really love the detailed rose candles. The red ones are gorgeous and spunky! I think they strike the same chord in my heart that adores vibrant red lipstick.

    This is great, by the way. I love your basket ideas and enjoy reading about you celebrating this beautiful season with your family! My family never did anything for Easter which makes me really sad. My household was quite conservative and my parents never wanted me to put any stock in the Easter Bunny when I was growing up, so rather than just talking and explaining things, they stayed away from anything at all relating to Easter (with the exception of the Easter Church service and brunch). Converting to Catholicism has really enriched the season of Easter for me in such a good spiritual way!

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  128. I love the Easter Egg candles and the floating candles. Now if only I had a pool…and kids who would leave a bowl of water alone on the table so that the candles could float. 🙂

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  136. I pinned the adorable votives to my “Allergen Free” board! With multiple food allergies in the house I am ever looking for festive ways to celebrate without candies since my kids cannot have the vast majority of them. I love these!!!

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  139. I think I *need* the sushi candles because they are so cute, but I will certainly be ordering the advent kit. My family will love making the candles, so special!

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