Jelly beans, egg hunts, peeps, chocolate eggs and basket grass are just a few of the things that surround Easter. Once again, the themes of overindulgence and stimulation have taken over a holiday. In our house, we have decided to keep things simple for Easter. We bought one bag of jelly beans for us and one small gift for Juniper. It’s not that we dislike easter basket grass — wait who am I kidding, I hate that stuff. But ultimately our goal is to have fun with all the eggs and bunnies but keep our focus on the true meaning of easter.

However, this post isn’t about Easter and my preferences. It is about the one small gift we got Juniper, along with some of her friends.

Hazel Village creates organic, handmade stuffed animals that are both well-constructed and cute. Stuffed animals are everywhere and many of them are mass produced pillows of acrylic fur and stuffing. It should come as no surprise that I would prefer to buy one well-designed stuffed animal than to have 100 marble eyes staring back at me from a crib. This is why we bought Zoe Rabbit (pictured on the left above). She is cute and soft and has a fancy little dress on.

Another reason these stuffed toys are so great is because of the embroidered faces. This feature makes them safe for small babies so nothing can get gnawed off and lodged in a throat. It isn’t easy to make embroidered faces cute! We have all seen the creepy faces of old stuffed animals, but fortunately these do not fall into that category.

Hazel Villiage makes multiple animals as well as accessories to dress them up, so one animal can last a child for many years. Starting out as a cuddling toy and turning into a dress-up doll. The biggest issue I ran into with Hazel Villiage was choosing just one stuffed animal among the numerous options. They are all so unique and awesome that picking one was hard, so here are a few of my other favorites: Max raccoon, Lucy owl and Oliver mouse.

In addition to Zoe rabbit, a fawn from Maileg is pictured in the center above. Maileg started in Denmark and is making some pretty cool children playthings. And pictured on the right above is Zeke the alpaca. He is a knitting pattern by Danger Crafts that Lindsay made for Juniper before she was born.

I understand that the stuffed animal market is quite saturated with cute, cuddly and stylish creatures. But these are a few of the best ones I have found.