When I was younger, each of us four children had our own wickered animal easter basket.  It was the one that we would hunt for on easter morning, and that would then become our right-hand-man as we ran around the house to collect easter eggs.  As a kid, I loved my basket because it was my own (you’ve got to claim what you can when there’s four of you!), but as I got older, I came to appreciate my basket because of all of the memories that it held for me.

This is Kian’s first year of being able to partake in the traditions of Easter, and I wanted to make him a basket that he too would be excited to pull out each year.  We gave it a whirl this afternoon, as we collected invisible-eggs (Kian seems to have a knack for it – at least at collecting the ‘air’ variety), and plan to put it to real use this weekend at grandma & grandpa’s egg hunt.

Materials:

Basket
Quarter yard of white felt
1 sheet of pink or cream felt
Embroidery thread (whichever color you like, I used #3825 from DMC)
Embroidery needle
Wire (I used a floral wire, which is very flexible)
Cotton Balls or batting
Scissors
Hot glue gun
1 sheet of paper or tissue paper

Steps:  Ears

1.  Fold a sheet of paper in half lengthwise, and cut the shape of half of a bunny ear along the folded edge.  Unfold the paper, and you have a pattern for your bunny ears.  Cut two ears out of the white felt, adding an extra 3/4″ around the entire edge of the ear.
2.  Cut two pieces of wire, and mold them to the shape of the pattern.
3.  Center the shaped wire on the white felt ear, and hot glue into place.  Pleat the top edge of the white felt so that it sits snugly over the wire, and hot glue in place (see pics).  Continue to fold the white felt over the wire, and hot glue into place.
4.  Fold your pattern in half, and trim the outside edges by 3/8″.  Unfold paper, and you have a pattern for the inner portion of the bunny ear.  Place it over the white felt ear, to make sure that it will cover the edges that are glued over the wire.  Cut two ears out of your pink felt, using the pattern.
5.  Embroider a design along the edges of the pink felt.  I used a satin stitch. *this step is optional*
6.  Hot glue the pink felt into the center of the white ear.

Steps:  Tail

1.  Trace a circle onto your white felt (I used a diameter of 3″), and cut it out.
2.  With your embroidery thread, sew a running-stitch along the edge of the circle.
3.  Place a little handful of cotton balls in the center of the circle, and draw the embroidery thread tight.  Add more cotton balls if needed to make it full.
4. Draw the thread as tightly as you can, and proceed to secure the top by crossing the stitches back and forth over the opening.

Steps:  Handle

1.  With your basket, measure what your desired handle length and width is.  Add 2″ to the total length, double the width, and cut it out from the white felt.  (My handle finished dimensions were 18″ x 1 1/4″.)
2.  Cut a piece of pink felt to be the same length, and slightly less wide, than the white felt handle.  For example, my finished handle was 1 1/4″ wide, so I cut the pink felt to be 7/8″ wide.
3.  Fold the lengthwise edges of the white felt into the center, and hot glue into place.
4.  Place the pink felt over the center of the white felt (covering the seam), and hot glue into place.
5. Embroider a design along the edges of the pink felt.  I used a running stitch.  *this step is optional*

Steps:  Assembly

1.  Pull one end of the handle through the basket and fold it up to ‘loop’ the handle in place.  Secure it by stitching with embroidery thread. Repeat with the second side.
2.  Stick the end of the ear through a weave in the basket to fully cover the raw edge.  Hot glue it into place.  Alternatively, use the same method as you used to attach the handle.  Hot glue any additional part of the ear to the basket to make it fully secure (those ears may be pulled on!)
3.  Hot glue the tail in place.