Living Easter Basket

Don't get me wrong, we have Easter baskets.  Some are wicker, some are plastic, none of them match and, let's just face it, dragging them out of the basement doesn't really herald the coming of my favorite season.  So I decided to create something that did.  Now every spring, the kids and I can bring these out, fill them with soil and grass seed and flowers and watch them fill in as we wait for Easter...and spring.

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MATERIALS

Galvanized bucket

Bark (check your woodpile, it just falls off the logs)

Gorilla glue

Clamps (optional)

Soil

Grass seed

Branch

Moss

Saw

STEPS

Place your first piece of bark up to your bucket and mark where the top of the bucket hits it.  Trim the bark to that mark.

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Add the Gorilla glue to your bark and use the clamps to hold it in place until it's set.  The reason I used Gorilla glue is that it expands quite a bit.  The curve of the bark won't match the curve of your bucket, so there's not a lot of surface area for glues to grab onto.  The Gorilla glue will expand and take up that extra space.  Keep going piece by piece until the entire bucket is covered.  If you're detail oriented, you can add some brown paint to the bucket between your pieces so that you won't see any galvanized through it, but it's not really necessary.

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Once the glue has set, remove the clamps.  Now you can go back through with bits of moss and fill in any holes or gaps.  

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To create your handle get a long branch that's pretty pliable, if it's a branch that's about to break into bloom, all the better!  I used some trimmings from a cherry tree and golden rod, they worked perfectly.  Gently bend them into a shoe horn shape and place both ends into the bucket.

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Now fill your bucket with soil.

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Plant a few blooming flowers.  I used primula and some tulips.  Remember that they're going to have to last a while, so if you use tulips and daffodils, plant some where the buds are just starting to peek out.  You can usually find potted ones for sale out and about this time of year.  Add quick germinating grass seed.

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Give everything a good watering and in about a week, your basket will start sprouting grass.  (Okay, if you're a little impatient, you can actually cut a  piece of sod from the nursery or the backyard and put in the bucket instead of the grass seed.)

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We added a few hen and chicks and our eggs.  Now we wait for the Easter Bunny.  Coco thinks he's going to like it since it'll remind him of his house.

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