Easy Woven Paper Basket

I have a healthy love for baskets. You have no idea how much I love them! They are useful and so so pretty. Since I love them so much I decided to try my hand at weaving a couple of small baskets out of some paper. 

Supplies:

butcher paper- I used a super heavy weight for the brown craft paper 

Scissors

Scotch tape

Pencil

Flexible metal stratight ruler- this is not necessary but it made the process easier!

I measured and marked 4 inches in from the edge on each end of the butcher paper. I chose four inches but you can choose any size. Whatever size of paper strip you chose to use will affect the end size of your basket.

This is where the straight edge comes in handy. I used it to tear the paper. It  made it so easy! Just make sure you hold the straight edge tight or it will mess up your line.  

I took the strip and folded it in half and then folded each end into the middle seam. Does that make sense? It makes the strips very strong. Which will help the basket hold up. You end up with strips that are about an inch wide.

This is the folded up strip. At this point I taped them shut. They didn't want to stay folded so I helped them along. My strips were 35 inches long. I made three of them. I cut down two of them into 10 inch strips. My plan was to make a pretty small basket.

I wove six of the ten inch pieces together for the base. I taped every single seam to keep them together. The inside of the basket is not very pretty! 

I bent the pieces that would make the sides of the basket up so that would be easier to weave.

 

Now to start weaving. I took the last long piece and taped it to the inside of one of the corner pieces. Tape that bad boy down good! 

You weave the piece the whole way around. In and out.

You need to bend the pieces and fold them a little to head around the corners. The first row is a little more difficult. It doesn't want to stay together at first. Each row after that gets easier  and easier to weave. I taped every single seam on the inside. Every single one! I cut off the strip once I got around to the spot that I started. Then start the next row on the next strip and weave. 

This little basket only needed two rows of weaving before it was finished. After the weaving was done I snipped off the tops to make them somewhat even.

Tape!! And lots of it. The more tape the better as far as I am concerned. It helped a lot to stabilize the basket and keep the weaves together. 

I finished it off with scraps from the long strips. All they needed was- you guessed it- a little tape to hold them on. I think it would be cute to finish these with some bright colored staples too. They were so easy to make. The little one ended up only taking an hour or so to make. No time at all! Now to fill them up!