Feel free to use this tutorial to create your own paper baskets. Please do not distribute this tutorial on any other site. You are welcome to add a link to this blog post.
If you create your own basket I would love to see a photo. Please stop back and share a photo of your basket.
You will need card stock or thicker pattern paper cut as follows:
- 14 strips of 8 1/2" x 1/4" (I used gray)
- 20 strips of 4 1/4" x 1/4" (I used a mix of gray and light blue)
- 1 strip of 4" x 3/8" (I used gray)
- 1 strip of 7" x 3/8" (I used gray)
- one 2 1/4" round circle (I used gray)
- strong tape (I used Scor-Tape)
Apply the shorter strips along the edge, alternating between the front and back of the long strip.
Leave a slight gap between each strip to allow for the weaving of the longer strips.
See picture below:
Weave each longer strip into the shorter strips. The photo below shows how the strips should look after you begin to weave them. The first few strips take some patience. After you have a few done, the rest are much easier to weave.
Make sure you are pulling the longer strips as tight against the previous strip as possible. After you have woven 3 or 4 strips take some time to adjust the shorter strips; making sure the are straight up and down and not slanted. This will make your basket more uniform and easier to work with when finishing.
After you have woven all of the longer pieces in you will need to trim the ends of the longer pieces leaving about a 1/2" extension. You can snip off every other extension from the shorter strips.
Here is a photo of the finished weave.
Now we are ready to make it look like a basket. Lay the woven piece with the side you are using for the outer part of the basket up.
Apply the 7" x 3/8" strip along the long edge without the extensions (this will be the top of the basket).
Apply the 4" x 3/8" strip along the short edge without the extensions (this will cover the seam).
Add adhesive to all of the extensions on the short side.
Now shape the woven piece into a cylinder and adhere the extensions with adhesive to the inside of the basket on the other end. Press firmly to make sure the adhesive is secure.
Here is what you should have at this point:
Apply adhesive to the left over tabs and fold them into the center of the basket.
Adhere the circle onto the bottom and press firmly to secure. (I placed the basket right side up and used my bottle of stamp cleaner to press down onto the adhesive to secure it.)
Here is the basket finished without handles and embellishments: I used some blue with the gray to create a more unique design to show you the weave.
Now you can add handles and finish it with embellishments. I cut two 3 1/2" strips of card stock and attached them to each side of the basket with brads. I cut the tag pieces with punches from Stampin' Up. The word "Relax" and the star are from Gina K Designs new Free With Three set Lazy Days of Summer.
Here is my finished basket:
At this point the basket is empty. You could place a small gift inside or some beautiful punched or stamped flowers. I will show you how I made my flowers for my original basket in another tutorial. So be sure to check back for that.
