Paper Peviews

Everytime you go shopping for food supplies at a supermarket or store, the checkout assistants give you with carryout paper bags or paper sacks to hold your items in for taking them out to your car. After you have unloaded the contents of the bag at home, you probably tuck the flattened bag in the under-the-sink drawer for storage until the need to reuse them for they are highly reusable. The difficulty begins when you have so many of them there, and they in fact cannot be all used for your foreseen needs. What can you do with them? You can simply produce new baskets out of them.

Simple handmade baskets out of recycled) paper shopping bags are quite easy to do even children can make them, and often enjoy doing so. You can handmade baskets for giving away a few produce from your garden, or some simple presents. People are inured of the department store kind of gift wrapping that some handcrafted wrappers will be very refreshing, for it arrives with the affection and care of the gift giver. Making a simple container you can receive many points with the recipient.

The basic steps in making the easiest usable basket are outlined below:

5. Bring out four paper shopping bags. Fold down the open mouth of one by folding the top outwards, until the rolled rim is about three inches from the bottom.

6. Put the second bag inside the first bag. Fold down the rim of the second just until it reaches the rim of the first bag. Do the same with the third bag inside the second bag. You now would have a three-layered basket strong enough to carry most light dry materials. Flatten the rolled sides by folding them down.

7. Remove the bottom of the fourth bag. Fold it the same manner until you have formed a ring. Place the layered basket inside the ring and position the ring in the middle to form the handle. Stitch, glue or paste it in the location and you crafted a paper basket.

8. Decorate it with pasted-on cut-outs, draw on it with pens or inscribe some messages on the rolled-down rims just for fun. The intention is to personalize the basket to make the simple gift it holds more expressive and special.

You can make other kinds of baskets with paper, like interlacing rolled and flattened bag paper into a small basket or vase for holding a table floral decoration, for instance. Rolling them firmly will stiffen the tube sufficiently for the produced basket to be erect; rolling the tubes loosely will make them very flexible for plaiting. Paper printed with colored illustrations makes lively trays or urns or something similar; plain-colored paper gives certain elegance when made to complement the motif of the room.

Whatever you may wish to make a paper basket for, and it is limited only by your resourcefulness, you can make the making of the baskets a happy family undertaking by engaging the children. They will love to do the baskets and you will adore them doing the baskets.