Go Green Easter Tips

 Go green this Easter !  Reduce, reuse, and recycle. How much impact does a few little Easter baskets have on the environment. But if you think about how much food, plates, and utensils you also use to put on a big family Easter feast and consider that many families across the world are doing similar, or consider that your local grocery store is not the only store with a wall of Easter candy packaged in plastics and foils.

Did you know that each year more than 8,000 tons of waste is produced from Easter egg packaging !

So how can you go green this Easter? I came across some great articles on ways to have a greener Easter.

*Easter Baskets: Reuse your Easter baskets or plant flowers in them. Don’t limit yourself to baskets! Think outside the box.

*Inside the Easter basket: While plastic eggs to hold candy are the traditional Easter basket filler, they are not Eco-friendly. Try making your own candy holder. If your feeling really crafty, you can even make an origami bunny to hold tiny treats like shown in this image.Still want eggs inside your Easter baskets? Reuse old eggs around your house. 

*Don’t buy the plastic Easter grass!You can reuse the grass from the year before but if you don’t have any, you can use other alternatives like shredded newspaper of magazine clippings, green yarn. Shredding leftover green tissue paper would be convenient!

*Living Green Grass:

Directions

• If you only have one week to grow the grass, soak spring wheat berries in warm water overnight. If you have two weeks before Easter, proceed to the next step; soaking the berries is not necessary.
• Find a glass pie pan, jar, or other container, to fit inside the Easter basket. Put at least 1 1/2 inches of potting soil into the bottom of the container and spread evenly. Scatter the soil generously with spring wheat berries and cover lightly with soil.
• Gently yet thoroughly water the seeded soil and place in a warm sunny location.
• Make certain the soil remains moist at all times during germination.

*Dying Easter eggs ! This year dye your eggs naturally by making your own dye. Think of the foods that always stain your clothes…like beets, blackberries, tea, and grape juice.  

Red
Red onion skins, use a lot (boil with eggs)
Pomegranate juice

Orange
Yellow onion skins (boil with eggs)

Yellow
Lemon or orange peel (boil with eggs)
Carrot tops (boil with eggs)
Celery seed (boil with eggs)
Ground cumin (boil with eggs)
Ground turmeric (boil with eggs)

Yellow Brown
Dill seeds (boil with eggs)

Brown
Strong coffee
Instant coffee
Black walnut shells (boil with eggs)

Yellow Green
Bright green apple peels (boil with eggs)

Green
Spinach leaves (boil with eggs)

Blue
Canned blueberries and their juice
Red cabbage leaves (boil with eggs)
Purple grape juice

Violet Blue
Violet blossoms
Red onion skins, less amount than you need to make red (boil with eggs)

Lavender
Diluted purple grape juice
Violet blossoms plus squeeze of lemon (boil with eggs)

Pink
Beets, fresh or canned
Cranberries or cranberry juice
Raspberries
Red grape juice