Can you believe Easter is less than a month away? It’s been an odd winter around here with not a lot of snow and several brief glimpses of spring weather, so all those little spring-weather teases have left me more than ready for warm weather to stick around for good. In the meantime, though, it’s time to get prepping for Easter! We do small Easter baskets with our kids, but beyond that I’ve never really associated Easter with gift-giving. I’m not sure why, since Easter is really all about sharing the incredibly good news of the Easter story – not about keeping it to yourself!! So this year, in the spirit of spreading hope and joy, I decided to put together some little Easter gift baskets with yummy treats to drop off at our local homeless shelter.
To add a personalized element to these baskets, I decided to try out the heat transfer vinyl tutorial that I saw on the Silhouette School blog last Easter – Melissa was able to use her Silhouette to personalize little stuffed animals from the dollar store with HTV names, and they looked so cute! So I tried it out – and it worked really well! (She’s got instructions over there for how to do this with a heat press, too, so make sure you pop over there for a more detailed tutorial.)
I made a few personalized with names using glitter HTV, and a few generic phrases with regular HTV. First I used my Silhouette to cut the vinyl, then I weeded away the excess.
After I got the designs laid out where I wanted them, I laid a pressing cloth over the animals and ironed on the HTV. Instead of doing it on the ironing board, I just did it on the tile floor so I could use lots of pressure. I didn’t have any trouble getting the HTV to adhere.
Aren’t they adorable? I love how easy and inexpensive it was to create these little “Easter buddies.” Since I don’t know exactly who will end up with these baskets and I can’t personalize them all, I made some generic ones with the phrases “Hoppy Easter” and “You are loved.” I’d like to make a few more with some Bible verses, or “Jesus loves you.”
I found some cute Easter “take out box” style treat boxes that I thought would be perfect for filling up with candy for the baskets. I filled them with a variety of candy.
Then I put together each basket with a stuffed animal and treat box. They look so colorful and cheerful!
I’m going to make several more of these and drop them off at our local homeless shelter to be distributed to some folks in need of a little extra love this Easter. They were really easy to put together and a great lesson to talk through with my 3 year old as she helped me assemble the baskets. I hope they’ll bring a smile to someone’s face!
Who could you put little Easter gift baskets together for this Easter? Maybe you could drop some off to be distributed at a homeless shelter, food bank, women’s resource center, low income medical clinic, community center, etc. Or it might be fun to gift them anonymously to some friends or neighbors!
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These are so cute AND so easy! Love the little DIY stuffies. [client]
Hey there Meredith,
I was looking around for some Easter ideas and I must say that I feel lucky to have landed here. These are just super cute. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work.
Cindy
what an adorable idea. I really love the froggie!
Sinea from Ducks n a Row
Love this idea, thanks!
SUPER random question but I found your site by frantically googling for stuffed frog toys. My son had this little frog toy as one of his top 2/3 toys, but he lost it and we have no idea how to replace it. My wife is pretty sure it’s from Dollar Tree, but I can’t find it on their site (or any other dollar store sites). I have scoured ebay and amazon as well. Do you happen to know where you got this frog?? Thanks so much!
Oh no! I know how challenging that can be! Yes, all these little animals were from the dollar tree but I’ve only seen them stocked around Easter. I do still have the frog that says “Hoppy Easter” if you’d like it? I know it wouldn’t be identical so it probably wouldn’t work for your son, but if you want it I’d be happy to send it to you…just send me an email!
HI Meredith,
Random question – do you have any of the ducks left over, unpersonalized?
Hi Julie, sorry I do not :-/
What font do you use or recommend? I have a hard time deciding what good
What looks good
This is a great idea! I have a mini heat press that I just bought. What temp should I use to do this project?
Look for a tag on the stuffed animal that lists the material, and use that as how to find your temp settings – you should be able to google a chart for easypress temperature settings :-)
The items are so beautiful; they would make perfect Christmas gifts.