Eco-Friendly Easter craft and gift ideas

We've got you covered this Easter, with:

1. Cool but easy Easter crafts with the amazing STABILO Woody solid-paint pencils;
2. Chocolate Easter gifts you can feel good about - with PLAYin CHOC - the certified-organic, certiifed-vegan, certified-allergen-free, plastic-free answer to a Kinder Egg - or our made-in-Ireland vegan truffle kits; and
3. Chocolate-free sustainable Easter gifts including our British Skin Foundation certified skin-kind, drain-safe, no-stain egg-shaped bath bombs!
4. Tips for managing the influx of Easter gifts, and for recycling what does arrive!

Easy Easter crafts with the amazing STABILO Woody solid-paint pencils

A. Turn a jar from your recycling bin into an adorable Easter vase:

B. Decorate boiled eggs to make them really special (and then eat them - STABILO Woody use all non-toxic ingredients!)

• Either colour on your (cooked or blown-out) egg IDEALLY WHITE-SHELLED, then use a wet paintbrush to smudge.
• Or warm the eggshell with a warm hairdryer before or after colouring and use a cloth to smudge.

C. Upcycle a carton into an Easter basket

D. Use them like paint for a mixed-media Easter card

Chocolate Easter gifts you can feel good about

On any climate-action list (like Drawdown.org), near the top you'll find, "eat more plants and fewer animal products". We don't all have to be 100% vegan, but the more of us choosing vegan more of the time, the better for our climate.

What happens every day is much more important than what happens on special days, so I don't stress about whether my family gift vegan or non-vegan chocolate to my daughter - but when I'm buying, I choose vegan when I can.

Does vegan chocolate taste nice? PLAYin CHOC has won over 30 foodie awards so far, including multiple Great Taste Awards - so the judges certainly find it delicious! My daughter and I love it, and the reviews on our site say the kids love it. But it's not the same as Cadbury DairyMilk so if that's all the child's ever tasted, PLAYin CHOC won't be what they're expecting.

PLAYin CHOC is also certified free of 14 common allergens including nuts, gluten, dairy/lactose, soya. It's made with just 4 ingredients, from the coconut and cocoa plants. And it's got no refined sugar, and half the sugars content of most commercial chocolates, making it much healthier.

PLAYin CHOC comes in single cubes, in 6-cube giftsets, or in 18-cube party / treat-hunt value packs, with dinosaur / woodland / endangered animal themes to choose from - see here.

We're proud to have co-created this vegan chocolate truffle making kit with ethical West Cork company Exploding Tree. It includes all you need to makek 50 truffles with 2 different coatings and even gift bags to put them into - you just need to add cream - can be vegan cream like Oatly, or can be cowsmilk cream (in which case of course your truffles won't be vegan).

Chocolate-free sustainable Easter gifts

Too much chocolate around at Easter? How about some egg-shaped bath bombs, or handmade woolfelt bunnies, wooden spinning tops, organic face paints, or a PlayMais craft kit, instead? See our collection here.

Tips for managing the influx of Easter gifts

As a special occasion approaches, I try and think about the circle of well-intended people likely to get my daughter a gift, and those I can influence, try to redirect their love to something more sustainable (or less chocolatey!) E.g., by suggesting a gift of cash so she can buy something she's saving for, or sending them a link to a gift both she and I can feel good about.

We can help with the latter - our website's wishlist function lets you create one list per person if you want, to give them a few gifts to choose from, and send them a link. Just click the pink heart on a product in a collection, or the pink "Add to wishlist" button if you're in the product details page.

Tips for recycling the Easter morning packaging

MyWaste.ie is the place to go for the latest recycling advice...relevant to Easter, they recommend:

• All plastics now go into the home recycling bin - hard and soft - as long as they're clean and dry. About 30%* of the hard plastic will get recycled (unclear about the soft plastic);
• Aluminium foil / tin foil (including Easter egg foil) is a valuable material and about 60%* will get recycled - ideally scrunched into a ball - the bigger the ball, the more likely it will get recycled;
• Cardboard and paper are among the most valuable materials and about 80% likely to get recycled - just ensure it's clean, dry, and loose (avoid putting items inside each other - the machines and people at the sorting center need to be able to see what's what!) 

* Source: the Irish EPA, 2020 statistics