One of my favourite things to put together during the Easter season are children’s Easter baskets. I love designing, decorating and choosing chocolates that they will love. Creating our own baskets allow us to tailor the items in the basket to their likes and creates a personal gift for them.
For this basket you will need:
Easter basket (I picked up mine from the Dollar Store – two baskets for $1)
small chocolate eggs (I chose Hershey’s cookies and creme)
Kinder Surprise Eggs
foam
green filling for the basket
styrofoam eggs (these came attached to a stick so it was easy to insert)
Directions:
Using a knife or scissors trace the bottom of the container on the foam to ensure it will fit in the bottom of your basket. Using a knife cut out the foam and place it in the bottom of your basket.
Fill the basket with the green filling to cover up the foam.
Insert the styrofoam eggs and place the Kinder egg in the basket.
Fill the basket with chocolate eggs (or another favourite of your child’s).
And voila – your basket is complete!
These are perfect for the little ones that come over during the holidays or a friend’s child. I have stopped buying the store packaged Easter baskets due to the quality of items included so these are great alternatives to store-bought baskets!
Do you make your own Easter baskets? What do you like to include?
Reading is a gift that we can give our children that will create lasting memories. Books not only tell a story but they teach us a lesson, guide us, take us on adventures and give us the courage to try something new.
Raincoast Books wants to celebrate the coming of Spring with a #SpringBookBasket giveaway featuring some of their greatest titles for your child. We were extremely lucky to receive I Wish You More, The Littlest Bunny and Enchanted Forest.
I Wish You More is written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld. This story is about all the endless good wishes we grant on our children. Wishes of curiosity, friendship and strength. A beautiful story of love between a guardian and their child with wonderful accompanying illustrations – this will be a much-loved book. It also makes the perfect baby shower gift!
“I wish you more give than take”
“I wish you more we than me”
The Littlest Bunny in Canada features just as it names suggests the littlest bunny in Canada with a very important secret – he is the Easter Bunny! Throughout this book we follow him as he completes his most important mission of the year – hiding the Easter eggs! As a bonus, your child and yourself should be on the look out for twenty very special eggs hidden throughout the book!
The Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford is a very special book – not only do you go through a quest in an enchanted forest you get to colour along the way! This book was so beautiful that I didn’t want to give it up at first! It is perfect for the older child through to adulthood not only as a book but as a colouring book. Not only do you colour in the pictures along the way you must look for special hidden animals and magical objects including nine symbols that will unlock the castle door.
The remaining four books in the #SpringBookBasket include:
A Nest is Noisy by Dianna Hutts Aston and illustrated by Sylvia Long features nests from around the world. From tiny hummingbird nests to orangutan nests in the sky a variety of nests are featured in this story. This book introduces children to the world of nests and helps to spark their imagination.
Farewell Floppy by Benjamin Chaud is the story of a young child that feels the need to grow up. In order to do so he feels he must get rid of his best friend, his rabbit, in order to gain more human friends. But why does getting rid of his rabbit friend feel so wrong? This book will remind children that friendships can be found in the most unexpected places!
From rain to rainbows is a wonderful story that reminds us that after the worst rain always comes the prettiest rainbow. This story reminds us to appreciate the dark with the light and that the best of situations comes out of the worst moments.
As winter leaves us and spring returns the soil is ready to plant and early flowers emerge. Follow Grandma and her grandchildren as they learn about twenty-four different flowers and how to plant their own flowers.
Raincoast Books wants one of my readers to win their own #SpringBookBasket Collection as pictured below.
Canadian residents can enter the #SpringBookBasket giveaway below – GOOD LUCK!
A wonderful set of new children’s books, The Three Little Horses and The Big Bully Donkey and The Donkey’s Kite written and illustrated by Liana-Melissa Allen are ready to entertain and engage your child.
Book One: The Three Little Horses and The Big Bully Donkey
This is the tale of three little horses who suddenly lose their home to a fire. The young horses are all alone and thrust out into the world. They must depend on themselves and each other to protect themselves from the bully donkey. The donkey wanders the forest wrecking homes and bullying other animals.
Book Two: Donkey’s Kite
The three horses and their friend Donkey are back! In this book, it is a perfect day for flying a kite. The four friends decide to make their own kites but try as he might, Donkey can not get his kite to fly! A friendly goose decides to help him out.
My Thoughts
I love a story that teaches and guides our children. A good story should show strong morals, understanding and compassion while still being engaging, fun and entertaining for a small child. Liana-Melissa Allen delivers this and more! In both books, Donkey learns some valuable lessons about friendship, respect and never giving up.
The illustrations are gorgeous! It is hard to believe such a young girl drew all of these drawings! They are truly beautiful and draw your child into the book. You will enjoy reading these books aloud with your child.
These two books will be the perfect addition to your home library. They are geared towards young children, ages 2-9.
Liana-Melissa is a young author and illustrator of children’s books and books for youth. She has written, illustrated and published six books. Reading and music are her primary passions in life. Her love of writing was fueled by her Father. You can connect with her on her website.
Easter is just around the corner and this is a perfect time to get your children ready by creating crafts and decorations to place around your home.
I stumbled upon this idea while on Pinterest (my favourite place to spend some time online!). I thought this would be the perfect craft to do with my children and it leaves a lasting memory of this time period to treasure later on.
For this project you will need:
large white canvas
yellow, blue and green paint
paint brushes
Directions:
Set up a clean area and lay your canvas on the table. Put out your paint and paint brushes. With a pencil roughly plan out where you would like to place your tulips.
Take your child’s hand and generously coat it with the desired paint.
Place your child’s hand on the canvas in the area you had set for the bloom of the tulip. You can alternate hands and paint colour to create a garden of tulips. In our case we alternated older/younger child’s hand. Wash up nicely!
Using the green paint, draw on a stem on each of the tulips.
You can create a garden bed or grass bed at the bottom of the canvas.
Allow your painting to dry. Once your painting is dry you can place the tulip canvas in a prominent place in your home. For us this was in our livingroom so that everyone could see their hands when they come to visit us.
This would also make a great gift for the Grandparents this Easter season!
What crafts have you started this season?
Easter is right around the corner (doesn’t it just feel like it was the New Year?) and what better way to surprise your little ones with a Treehouse Cube full of their favourite shows on DVD format!
On March 3rd, kaboom! entertainment launched the Treehouse Ultimate Collection cube which includes ten hours of your favourite Treehouse shows. Inside this unique package you will find ten DVDs featuring: Toopy and Binoo, Franklin, Max and Ruby, Brother Bear, Captain Barnacles, Kwazii, Golias and Nessa. This collection features one hundred of your child’s favourite episodes!
Our youngest was so excited to come home and find the Cube. He didn’t know which one to watch first! So he settled with catching up on more Toopy and Binoo followed by Octonauts and Bernstein Bears for me.
Zack and Quack: Popping Hopping Easter came with this bundle which was the perfect movie to get just in time for Easter. This DVD features Zack and his best friend, an impulsive young duck named Quack. They live inside a pop up book. It is a place full of surprises where pulling pop ups makes exciting and unexpected things happen. This DVD comes with five episodes.
Remember the Guess How Much I Love You DVD I featured in January? This would be the perfect addition to add into your Easter gift basket for your little one. A special reminder to your little one on just how much they mean to you.
If you have a little one at home that would love to win this Ultimate Treehouse DVD cube and Zack and Quack Popping Hopping Easter, you can now win your own just in time for Easter! My Canadian residents can enter via the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway
Make sure to follow kaboom! on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with new releases.
Disclosure: I received the above mentioned products free of charge. All opinions expressed are my own.
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