How to Weave an Easter Basket from Recycled Boxes

April 16th, 2014 Pin It

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Cardboard packaging lends bold colors and interesting graphics to this basket. Diane Gilleland These baskets are simple to make, involving a little weaving and a little gluing. Diane Gilleland Since boxes come in all shapes and sizes, you can make baskets in all shapes and sizes. This little one would make a cute party favor. Diane Gilleland

I love looking at product packaging. You can do so many creative things with all those bold graphics. I have cut up some assorted boxes and woven them into baskets for Easter. Once the holiday is over, I can even put them back into the recycle bin or use them for organizing.

What you'll need:

Cardboard food boxes (see notes below)

Metal ruler

Pencil

Scissors

X-Acto knife

Cutting surface

Bone folder

Tacky glue

Paper clips

A few notes on cardboard: For the samples shown, I've used a pizza box, a 12-pack soda box, and a baking mix box. Packaging comes in all shapes and sizes-as long as it's made of chipboard, you can use anything you like. The larger the box you begin with, the larger your finished basket will be. I've made each of these baskets from a single box, but you could combine cardboard from several boxes if you prefer.

Before you begin this project, make sure your box is nice and clean. Cut the four sides apart, following the foldlines. Cut off any tabs from the top and bottom of the box.

Step 1: Start with the front or back panel of the box. Most weaving projects start with a little math and planning, so let's get that out of the way first.



Measure out a rectangle that's an odd number of inches wide. Then, add 6 inches to that dimension. This will be the length of your rectangle. For example, my rectangle is 5 inches wide. Adding 6 inches, I get 11 inches. So I'm cutting a 5-inch-by-11-inch rectangle.



Cut a second rectangle to match.