Extraordinary Easter Baskets
With Easter just around the corner, now is the time to get cooking with basket making ideas.
Creative consultant Daphne Shirley says to think outside the box this year and design Easter baskets specifically for the special people in your life.
The following are some of Shirley's inspiring Easter basket ideas she shared with The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith:
Magic Top Hat (as a basket) with a Bunny Coming Out
Using a plastic top hat you may have left over from New Year's Eve, simply wrap a piece of tissue paper or fabric around the hat, adding a ribbon band where the top hat meets the brim. Affix top edges with a glue gun.
Fill the basket with magical Easter items such as:
Decoupage Photo Basket for Baby
Turn a plain metal pail or bucket into a keepsake using photos of family or baby. Actual photos work, but it is easier to make color copies of photos (they are thinner and easier to affix).
Adorn the bucket with the images using modge podge (available at craft stores). Cut the photos and affix, covering the entire surface. Shirley says the basket is perfect for a new Mom and her baby.
Fill the baket with:
Baskets For Her: Fashion Tote
Buy an attractive fashion tote and fill it with beautiful things.
To make the fashionable Easter eggs, cut images of chic dresses, shoes, bags and hats, and affix to colored eggs using modge podge (available at crafts stores).
Fill the basket with:
Easter petit fours from www.thepopcornfactory.com, $39.95
Baskets For Him: Golf Basket
Fill his basket with all things golf -- just in time for the season. To make monogrammed eggs, affix letter stickers on eggs and then drop in desired color of dye. After removing from dye, dry egg and remove sticker.
Fill the basket with:
Lucky Picnic Basket
Fill a picnic basket with spring and Easter treats, and head off to a grassy knoll. Pick a picnic basket from Crateandbarrel.com, $24. Include Easter egg fortunes, made by draining eggs and chipping a small hole in the end of the eggs.
On strips of narrow paper, write Easter fortunes or little "tasks" such as "Kiss me in my Easter bonnet" or "Feed me a chocolate bunny."
Also include Easter "carrots" filled with cheese and cheesy crackers. To make the carrots, fill a disposable clear plastic frosting bag with cheese or crackers and tie off with green raffia for the stem (both available at craft stores). Add some pink Fleur de Rose from Perrier Jouet in a beautiful flowery bottle.
Also include the following:
Natural Sod Basket
For the organic naturalist, this basket is actually reusable as a hanging basket. Shirley demonstrated an all-natural "CocoPlanter" basket form Home Depot, $10, filled with an orange Begonia, ivy and lined with moss. Fill the basket with natural items such as Marbleized Easter Eggs.
To make natural dyes, add your dying agent (4 cups of chopped red cabbage, 1 quart of brewed coffee, 4 cups of chopped red onion skins, 4 cups of chopped beets, or 3 tablespoons turmeric) to 1 quart of water and 2 tablespoons of white vinegar and bring to a boil. Let it simmer for half an hour then strain the dye and add eggs. To marbleize the eggs, add 1 tablespoon of oil to the mixture. Since oil and water don't mix, a marble effect develops as dye does now infiltrate dyed areas.
Also included in basket: