DIY Paper Basket

With Spring in full gear now we are going to share with you a little how-to Spring/Easter basket that you can make. These are perfect to use as an afternoon craft project with the kids on Spring Break so they can have them ready for egg collecting on Easter morning or you can use them as decorations or even as a goodie “bag” at a party or gift basket to give to someone. They can be as cute or as sophisticated as you want them to be.

Here’s how to make them...

We actually made two different sized baskets. The first one (blue) is made from regular sized paper that we cut into a 8 ¼ x 8 ¼ inch square. You can really use any size paper but it needs to be cut into a square. The bigger the paper the bigger the basket. We also made one (pink) that was slightly larger so we made that a 12x12 inch square. We have also provided lots of step by step by step pictures as some of the steps are hard to explain.

So the process at the start is the same for any size. You will need to start off with a square then you mark it into thirds in both directions so you end up with nine smaller equal squares.

Then you cut the two lines on the bottom third and the two lines on the top third (as shown in the picture below).

Now fold all the side towards the middle along the lines.

Here’s where things get a little different.

Blue Basket (wider shallower basket): Put glue on the sides of the bottom middle square and then glue the bottom corner squares to the middle so it forms a triangle. Repeat at the top.

Then use scissors to round the four corners of the basket.

Take a long thin strip (ours is from what was left over of the paper that we made into a square which was about 8 ½ inches long but you can make yours whatever size you like) and glue the strip on like a handle.

Now you can decorate. We used some punches but you can draw, stamp, or sticker things to it. Keep in mind that stamping and drawing would be more difficult when the basket is already assembled.

Pink Basket (taller deep basket): Take each corner and spilt into thirds again and cut. 

Now take the middle bottom square and mark the middle of the edge and cut into a triangle and do the same on the other side. Fold along lines. 

Glue the inner third from the right hand side to the inner third from the left hand side so they are perpendicular to each other.

Then continue overlapping and gluing sides, adding thirds and alternating sides until you’ve used them all.

The last ones should be in line with each other.

Glue the remaining triangles upward to hide all of the overlapping gluing that you’ve just done and probably to hold things in place as well.

Fold little one inch circles (ours probably could have been a little bigger) to help hide all of the edges and corners at the top

Attach a handle. Again it can be whatever size and colour you choose. Lastly, decorate!

Heart Baskets and Hanging Heart Garland

One of my favourite holidays is coming up, yes, it’s almost Valentine’s Day and we have a few heart/love themed blog posts in store for you for the next couple of weeks. Like I said before I like Valentine’s Day because I love all things hearts and pink and I love cinnamon hearts and you can find all of those things in abundance when it’s Valentines’ Day!

For the next couple of weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day we are focusing on creating things inspired by Valentine’s Day. This week we are making a heart weave basket that you can put treats in and a hanging heart garland that you can hang for decoration. 

Heart Weave Basket

This is something that I remember making in elementary school. You’ll need two colours of cardstock. We went with red and bright pink. Then you’ll want to print this template off on the sheets of cardstock...

Cut out the templates. You’ll have two of each colour so you can make two baskets. After cutting out the large shapes fold them in half so that the lined sides are up. Cut along the lines.

Now it’s time for some weaving. Put one template under the other. We wove the red through the pink. Take the red strip and weave it through the pink strip. Then weave the red strip around the pink strip and repeat weaving through and then around. Do the opposite for the next strip and then do the same as the first for the next strip, and finally repeat the second weaving sequence for the last strip.

This is what the finished basket will look like. If you have a scrap of ribbon or cardstock, glue it to the top and it can be used as a handle. 

Hanging Heart Garland

We have a bunch of 7 inch strips leftover from making cards so we took those and made a hanging heart garland out of them. If you want to make bigger or smaller hearts, you can cut different lengths of strips.

First you need some strips and a pencil to make the hearts. If you use a skinnier tool you'll get a smaller tighter heart. Make as many hearts as you want; the more hearts, the larger the garland. To make a heart you fold a strip in half. Then roll each end into the V most of the way down. Once both side are rolled, you’ll have a curly heart.

Once the hearts are made you string them together with a needle and thread and glue them together so that they look like this...

Here is the finished garland.