When a client asked me to plan and Easter party I was hesitant. I was never into Easter and never celebrated it. The only Easter memory I had was of my parents taking the obligatory "My kid with the Easter Bunny" photo. At the moment the photographer had snapped the pic, I'd looked up at the Easter bunny with a confused expression as if saying "Who the HELL are YOU supposed to be?"
​
What does one even DO at an Easter party anyway? Well, if nothing else I figured I'd probably come up with the most 'unique' Easter party ever given I didn't have a clue what I was doing...
(Honestly, I've never gotten the connection.)
Invitations
I found this tutorial from Jellyfish to make a cute egg invitation.
​
Very inexpensive and simple to make and I already had the materials needed in my scrapbooking supplies.
​
I wanted to keep my invitation rather genetic being most people regard Easter as a religious holiday and I needed to respect that fact despite not being the least bit religious myself.
Staging & props
Luckily my client and I were on the same page, she wanted generic as well.
​
​I hadn't done any woodworking in awhile and had a pile of scrap wood I needed to clean out of my lower garage so I decided to design staging that would accomplish that, making an egg shaped shelf that I would build the rest of my staging around.
The wood fence backdrop was a photo backdrop that I hung against the focal wall of the room.
The wood bunnies with the burlap ears were pieces of scrap wood I cut and mounted on a base that would them to stand up. I hand painted the faces. The burlap ears I sewed out of feed bags I got for free from a tractor supply store. I stapled them to the wood bodies. The only thing I purchased was the brown checked fabric to make their bows.
A piece of artificial grass I had helped hide the bunny stands.
I made the bunny crossing sign out of the same scrap wood, sanded and painted it and used a stencil to make the words "BUNNY CROSSING". The tall grass fronds came from the Dollar Store as did the Easter sign on the shelf, the blue egg in holder and the chicken. The rest of the bunnies came from a Goodwill store.
The bird's nest was courtesy of a robin who built her nest on my deck light. If you're going to utilize a real bird's nest I recommend spraying it with Lysol or bleach water, taking care not to saturate the nest that it gets so wet it starts falling apart. Spray lightly, let dry, repeat. This will kill and mites or other critters in the nest.
​
Using the same photo backdrop I used you can also do something like this if woodworking isn't your forte.
For inexpensive props use what you have on hand or borrow from family and friends. Secondhand stores are a great place to find Easter themed items on the cheap. A secondhand shop near me has a large inground pool filled with stuffed animals including bunnies for 25 cents each.
​
I loved these antique stamped eggs. Here's the tutorial from SewforSoul.​
Food/Menu
My client already had her dinner menu chosen. (I guess my facial expression gave away the fact I wasn't impressed???) because she asked "Well what would YOU serve?" Ham is so overdone for Easter dinner...
This is the menu I gave her.
Roast Lamb with Mint Sauce
You can purchase a larger cut of meat to feed more people and this recipe only requires 20 minutes of active preparation time. The mint sauce and the cipollini onions give the meal a lighter fresher flavor.
​
Potatoes Grand Mere
Dress up Yukon Gold potatoes with heavy cream, Parmesan cheese, mustard, and plenty of garlic. This baked dish is rich and fragrant, with the tangy mustard and sharp cheese offsetting the lamb perfectly.
​
Roasted Carrots with Za'atar
Carrots are pretty much synonymous with Easter and the Za'atar, which is a punchy Middle Eastern spice zips the carrots up a bit.
Typically, Za'atar is a blend of dried thyme, oregano, marjoram, sumac, toasted sesame seeds, and salt, but as with any spice blend that is ancient, there are many variations. While you can buy Za'atar I prefer to make my own. Here's the recipe for homemade Za'atar:
Ingredients
-
1 tablespoon​ roasted sesame seeds
-
1/4 cup ground sumac
-
2 tablespoons dried thyme
-
2 tablespoons dried marjoram
-
2 tablespoons dried oregano
-
1 teaspoon coarse salt
Grind the sesame seeds in a food processor, spice grinder, or with a mortar and pestle.
Transfer to a bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Mix well.
​
Get the Roasted Carrots recipe here
​
Green Beans with Sauteed Onions & Za'atar
As long as you're making the Za'atar for the carrots, you may as well make the green beans recipe that also uses Za'atar as well.
Get the recipe here
​
Purple Cabbage Salad
This is a traditional Passover side dish and it's really good. The vinegar in the salad cuts the richness from the lamb perfectly, and mandarin oranges and dried cranberries add a citrusy sweetness. The flavor is enhanced if it sits so you can make it a day or 2 ahead. Cover and stick in the refrigerator.
Get recipe here
​
Easter Bunny Bread Rolls
The grand finale...bunny rolls! Super simple to make.
Get recipe here
​
As long as we're on the subject of food...
Crawl out of that Easter ham dinner rut and lay an appetizer on your guests I bet they've never had before.
Serve some Fig Crostini as an appetizer.
This easy starter comes together quickly and only requires a few simple ingredients.
Use good-quality balsamic vinegar for the most robust flavor and add a little crumbled goat cheese to really amp up the experience.
Trust me, they're delicious!
Photo credit: The Spruce
Tablescape
My client's house was rustic decor so I kept things in that vein.
I made an adaptation of this burlap table runner by Eclectically Vintage.
I didn't want big honkin' puffy rabbit tails running the length of the table runner and interfering with place settings and food dishes set on the table.
So only the stamped bunnies on the end of the runner got the white tails...and I used a smaller version tail than seen in the photo.
​
The tutorial for the table runner is below.
1) Print out a cute bunny silhouette like this one sized to your liking (I made it as big as could fit on a piece of 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper)
2) Cut out silhouette and make your own stencil by laying bunny onto stencil film and cutting out with an x-acto knife
3) Put paper bags under burlap runner so paint won’t bleed through
4) With a pouncer, pounce on brown craft paint (for chocolate bunnies) or choose your favorite paint color
5) Once paint is dry, add white pom pom tails
Photo credit: Decor Home
i saw this place setting on Decor Home and loved the rustic simplicity of it.
However, I quickly discovered one needed to sacrifice their first born child to afford one fancy rattan placemat as shown at $62 each.
I found a seagrass charger at Target for $6.
Photo credit: Target
Close enough! I felt the only thing I needed that would give me the look I was after was the crocheted napkin. I found them at Bumblebee Linens. That particular napkin has been discontinued but they carry similar ones in the Cotton & Linen Napkins section. Warning: They've escalated quite a bit in price like everything else so if they're out of your budget just go with a regular cloth napkin.
​
For the centerpiece I did something similar to the piece at right using a wood base I had at home.
I got a 7.9" bird's nest from Temu as well as the wood bunny cutouts. The glass container came from Dollar General and the egg shaped aromatherapy candle from Etsy.
​
The centerpiece cost $10.
Photo credit: Pinterest
Activities
My client requested an Easter egg hunt. Thing was, she had very young grandchildren, tweens and teens so I didn't think the typical Easter egg hunt would appeal to all ages. And I would imagine the same old thing year after year gets boring.
I offered my client a couple of alternatives that I felt would appeal to all of the kids.
​
A nighttime glow-in-the-dark hunt will take the adventure to the next level. You can get glow in the dark eggs here.
Consider filling at least some of the eggs with something other than candy.
Photo credit: Country Living
Make up coupons with extra privileges on them like an extra hour before bedtime or stuff a coupon or gift certificate to kids' favorite restaurants in them. Tickets to sporting events, concerts, movies, etc. are another hit with the tweens and teens. Tell your egg hunters you've stuffed a $50 bill in one of the eggs and watch how fast they move, no matter what their age. (Just stay out of their way or you'll get bulldozed over)
If you're working with a wide age range from little ones to tweens and teens, give the little ones a head start over the older kids so they get a chance to get some eggs - and the big $$ egg if you're using one.
DIY Mini Trophies for your egg hunters.
PUZZLE EASTER EGG HUNT
​
Combine a traditional hunt with a follow-up activity. This set includes a dozen mini puzzle-filled eggs for ages three and up. Once everyone finds an egg, it's a race to see who can finish their puzzle first.
​
Photo credit: JOYIN
CRACK THE CODE
​
Put coded messages in the eggs. Kids have to crack the code and decipher their message before they can hunt for their next egg.
Some examples:
​
Follow the Bunny, he has the chocolate!
Somebunny loves you!
Hoppy Easter
You are my favorite Peeps
Bunny Kisses and Easter Wishes
Every Bunny needs some bunny to love!
Photo credit: Country Living
CANDY CHARCUTERIE BOARD
​
Build one together!
Photo credit: Pinterest
BEWARE THE BLACK!
​
You'll need some 3 oz. Dixie Cups
and assorted colors/flavors of jelly beans. Make sure you have some black jelly beans in the mix.
​
This is on the order of the shell game but you won't be moving the cups around.
​
Hide a jelly bean under each Dixie cup but only 1 or 2 black jelly beans under 1 or 2 of the cups.
​
Players choose a cup. If they get any jelly bean but the black, they remain
in the game to play another round. But if they choose a cup with a black jelly bean under it, they're eliminated from the game. The last person to hit a black jelly bean wins the game.
Note: I glued Peeps to the cups to make them more Eastery but this is optional.
TAG T SHIRT
You'll need:
-
A brightly colored T shirt (preferably pink). If you have a teen at the party, you want the T shirt to fit him/her.
-
Several plastic Easter eggs to fill
-
Enough treats and novelties to fill the eggs PLUS cover the shirt
-
Masking tape
-
Hot glue gun
Fill the eggs with treats, then tape the eggs shut with the masking tape so the eggs don't come open.
Glue the egg, novelties and extra treats to the T shirt using the hot glue gun. Use the hot glue sparingly, you want players to be able to pull the eggs, treats and novelties off the shirt.
.jpg)
The kid wearing the T shirt runs around the yard, trying to avoid those trying to catch him/her to pull the prizes off his/her T shirt.
If a child snags a prize off the shirt, it's theirs.
Tip: You might want to include some of the fingertip chicken catapults at left. The kids LOVED these things!
Put the catapult chicken in one of the eggs, don't glue it directly to the shirt!