wee woven basket craft

For Easter we made this little woven paper basket. I'd like to share how we did it. First grab a saucer and draw around it onto stiff cardboard.

Cut out this circle. About 2cm in from the outer edge draw another circle. Using a craft knife or very sharp scissors cut this out.

The small circle is going to be the base and the larger circle is the upper rim.

Next you need to make the upright strands that the coloured paper will be woven in and out of.
Cut an A4 piece of paper in half length ways (you can recycle one of the 45,867,000 paintings your kids did). Then from the edge fold the paper over and over on itself about 5 mm wide. This will give you a long, flat strong strand.

Place the middle of the strands on your smaller cardboard circle and staple into place.
Try to make sure that the sides are of equal length.
Next fold the strands up to make them vertical. Staple the tops of the strands to the underside of the cardboard upper rim.

Now your basket skeleton should look like this...

A bit wonky, but that's part of the charm ;-)

While you were doing this get your child to cut lengths of A4 paper. Ideally they should be about 1cm wide, this is good cutting practice for small hands. Again a good time to recycle those paintings, or you can use coloured paper. Wrapping paper would also work.


Tape the end of a coloured strip to one of the strands near the bottom of the basket.

Now let your child weave it in and out of the skeleton. Secure the end with more tape. Repeat until the basket is complete. Remember to push the woven paper down so that there are few gaps.

For the handle we made a concertina. Take 2 long lengths of coloured paper. Tape them or staple them together in an L shape. Keep folding alternate strips on top of each other, secure the end with tape. We made 3 lengths of this taped together to make the handle.

Staple the handle to the upper rim :-)

Ach, I love how my kids enjoy making things and being creative...only sometimes I wish they weren't quite so enthusiastic...

I literally had to hose them down in the garden after this painting session!

To end this post a little just for fun quiz...

A few posts ago I talked about Rebe's dressing up and the interesting way she interprets the ideas in her head. All she needs is a suggestion of the the right shape and colour and she is satisfied she is wearing a complete and identifiable costume. So, what is she here? Go on, have a guess!

I'll give you the answer tomorrow :-)