Weaving a Newspaper Basket

I found the idea for a newspaper basket at www.howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2009/06/newspaper-basket.html. It reminded me of the little paper baskets I use to make as a child for May Day. So, yesterday, I set out to make one to show the kids, and hopefully inspire them to try it for themselves.

First, I cut a couple of sheets of newspaper into strips. I cut the pages vertically, and used the spaces between article columns as a guide for cutting.

Then, I made a cross with two strips, stapling them in the middle.

From there, I wove strips out vertically, and horizontally, until I had enough to form the bottom of my basket.

At that point, I folded the sides at a right angle to the bottom, and continued to weave around the sides, still adding staples here and there along the way.

When I had the sides as high as I wanted them, I folded in the loose ends, and trimmed them off.

Then, I glued on a folded finished edged around the top of the basket.

The children thought it need a handle, so I stapled in another folded strip.

Finally, because it was little flimsy, I cut and glued a piece of cardboard, from a cereal box, onto the bottom. I could have skipped that step, if I had cut my newspaper strips two or three times wider than I wanted, so I could have folded them over, making thicker strips for weaving. But, the cardboard worked out anyway.

If your wondering what we did with our basket, well...we filled it with goodies to take to Grandmother's house...but, that's another story all together.

It's great to be a homeschooler.