Dollhouse Miniature Baskets

 

Watch the video here.

 

 

This week we are making this really cute basket out of card-stock. I used Kraft color but you can use pretty much any color you want. I am thinking I might make some more in white for the dollhouse, I think they would look really nice in the decorating style I am planning to use.

The first step I did off camera and that was to make a form to make my basket on. I have a piece of 1by2 here from a project I did a while back and that seemed like a good size to make my basket so I cut a small piece off one end. Mine was cut around 2”, I didn't measure I just cut off a chunk that looked like it would be easy to work with.

Now the actual dimension of a 1by2 is not 1” by 2” it is actually ¾” by 1 ½”. That is because the wood is cut in a raw state fresh from the tree at 1” by 2” then it is dried and then planed (smoothed with a big machine) resulting in the slightly smaller dimension. I know this is a thing that confuses a lot of people so I thought I should touch on it here.

Anyway, after cutting my wooden form I covered it with some parchment paper to make it non-stick. I did miss a little bit of the bottom on a corner and that almost caused a big problem. I recommend that you do a better job of covering yours than I did.

Once this was done I cut some strips of my card-stock at ⅛” by the width of the paper (8 ½”) you will need at least 11 of these. I do recommend that you cut at least a couple of extra just in case.

I cut 7 of these in half and left the rest the entire length.

I then used the pieces that I had cut in half to weave the bottom of the basket, I used 5 of the half strips for the width of the basket and 7 or 8 to make the length.

 

 

 

 I made 2 of these baskets, one on camera and one to test the process. The first one took 8 strips and the one on camera only took 7. You want the bottom of the basket to be the same size as the bottom of your wood form. I used just a dot of glue to anchor all the outside edges of the woven area.

Then I formed my basket around the wooden form using a rubber band to hold it in place. I then released every other strip so I could add the first round of the side strips. 

 

 

 

 

I wrapped a full length strip around hiding the start/stop point under a strip of the basket. After making sure this was snug and straight I glued the pieces that were going to lay over it. And held everything together with a second rubber band.

Once dry I removed the first rubber band and eased the opposite strips out from under the remaining rubber band to weave under on the second row. I repeated the same process as with the first row for both the second and third row of weaving.

I stopped at 3 rows but if you want a taller basket just keep going up.

After the final row was added I eased the basket off the wooden form and trimmed and folded the inside vertical strips and glued them to the outside of the last horizontal row.

I placed the basket back on the wood form to finish the last step.

I then added an additional identical strip of paper to the outside gluing it securely.

Once the glue is dry remove from the form and trim the remaining strips and neaten up the top of the basket.

Now all we need to do is give a coat of mat Mod Podge to both the inside and the outside of the basket and we are finished.

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