Paper Basket

It's Friday and it's raining and I'm bored.  The house is clean (other than the dishes in the sink) and I wanted to do something.  So I decided that something on Pinterest would be fun.  So this evening I made:

A PAPER BASKET!!!!

It was actually quite fun, for me at least.  I used a tutorial I found online that was very simple to do.  I tried to take pictures of all the steps, but I think I probably forgot some.

I used:
20 sheets of paper
Paper Cutter
Tape
Heavy Book

Here's how I made it.

1.  Cut all of the sheets in half the long way.  Hot dog style. : ) Don't mind the hole punches.  I used some old school paper.  I folded it so that the lettering was on the outside, you can do it either way, or use colored paper.

2.  Then you fold those pieces in half.

3.  Open up the pieces and fold the ends to meet at the center fold.

4.  Then refold on the center fold.

5.  Next you need to combine them to make long strips.  Combine two strips to make a long strip.  I used 14 long strips for the bottom/side edges. I just overlapped the edges by 2 inches and taped into place. This picture shows the different folds.  The one on the right is the long strip.

6.  Then I made 3 really long strips to weave around the outside.  I again overlapped the strips, this time using 4 pieces.

7.  I laid out 7 long strips and tape the edges together so they wouldn't move. Then I weaved the other 7 the other way so that I formed the base starting 6 inches from the edge.  I didn't take a picture of this step, but the tutorial I am linking to has a picture.  I used the book to hold the edges down when I first started to weave the strips.

8.  Once the bottom was done I creased the edges up.

9.  Next I weaved the 3 really long strips around the basket.  I used paperclips to hold into place.

10.  Once done I folded the top edges over and tucked them under the top strip.  This was the hardest part! I kept getting impatient when it didn't fold right.  So there are a few that have tape holding them down.  I used paperclips on each to strip to hold them out of the way while I was folding.

Now that it's done, I'm thinking of putting something over it to "seal" it.  That way it'll last longer.  And I'm going to play around with the sizes to see if I can make a smaller yet taller basket.

I got my idea from Jane Avion at http://janeavion.blogspot.com/2009/10/recycled-paper-basket.html