How to Make Wooden Bunny Easter Baskets

In this post I’ll be sharing How to Make DIY Wooden Bunny Easter Baskets.

Many years ago my mom had an idea to make me and my siblings, bunny shaped Easter baskets.

She drew up a design and took it to my grandpa, who used a bandsaw to cut out some wooden bunnies.

He also cut little planks to form a basket.

My my mom stained and painted them, and my dad helped put them together.

This is my old Easter basket. Pretty awesome, right?!! I can’t believe it’s almost 30 years old!! Time flies!!

It’s still incredibly sturdy after all these years.

I pulled out my Easter basket a week or so ago, and my girls couldn’t get enough of this sweet bunny.

My two oldest daughters wanted to hold it simultaneously, big problem, right?

It then became clear that we should make them each a basket of their own.

Materials we used:

-bunny outline to trace onto the board

-1″x10″ boards

-1/4″x 3/4″x 12″ little planks -we needed 51 of these

-5/8″x 48″ dowel rod-cut to 11.5″

-wood glue

-1″ nails

-latex and acrylic paint

-flower and butterfly embellishments

Tools we used:

-drill gun

-5/8″ Forstner bits

-table saw

-miter saw

-jig saw (band saw is preferable for a project like this)

-1″ nailer

The Process

I simply traced my mom’s basket design onto paper.

It’s just slightly taller than an 8.5″x11″ sheet of paper so I had to tape 2 pieces of paper together to make it exact.

I’ve included a free PDF file that can be printed on an 11″x”17 sheet of paper or on 2- 8.5″x11″ pieces of paper and then the paper can be taped together to form the bunny outline.

I have an HP printer and I simply click on the option that says “Poster” under the Paper Size and Handling category, this enables printing the bunny outline on 2 different pieces of paper and big enough to make the basket outline.

If you have any questions feel free to ask (Free Bunny Outline Printable). I cut the bunny out and it was traced onto the 1″x10″ boards.

I then cut the bunny shapes out using a jigsaw, and sanded them (a bandsaw would work great for this too).

Ours actually ended up being slightly smaller than my old basket, so we only used 17 planks on my daughters’ baskets compared to the original 19 planks on my basket.

Next, I ripped planks from a 1″x10″ board using the table saw, and cut them to 12″ using the miter saw.

I painted the bunnies and planks with latex paint before anything was put together.

Holes were drilled into the back of the bunny cutouts, where 11.5″ dowel rods were secured using wood glue.

Then, planks were nailed onto the outline of the bunny to form the basket.

It took 17 planks per basket, 6 on the sides and 5 on the bottom.

We found it helpful to turn the bunny upside down on its ears, and nail the bottom 5 planks on first.

Then we turned it right side up, and nailed 6 planks to each side.

I sketched out a face for the bunnies on a piece of paper (also available as a free printable), and then laid that paper onto the bunnies.

I simply traced it onto their faces by drawing over my sketch with a pen while applying pressure.

There was enough of an impression that I could see to paint the faces.

I also painted some clothes on them.

When the paint was dried, I put some finishing touches on them, by hot gluing flower and butterfly embellishments on the bunnies. Here they are ready to hold eggs and candy.