Hello! Today, I have a fun little project for ya: A few (four, to be exact) upgrades of cheap baskets to make them fabulous and fit your style. I bought these baskets a few years ago from Target on clearance for, I believe, $2.38 each.
They started out that silver with hot pink rubberized tops. Over the years I've had them, they've held food in the pantry, corralled socks in the closet, and kept books and toys tidy. Super useful, and a nice size. But the silver and pink weren't really working for me, so recently, I took them out onto the roof and gave them a coat of matte black spray paint. Better already, right? But I knew I wanted to do something else...a paint treatment? Weaving? I couldn't decide, so in the end I just played around a bunch and came up with four ideas I really liked that I thought you might be into, too!
First up, a little leather. Well, fake leather. While visiting my mom in Pennsylvania over the weekend, I found this pack of faux suede for less than $4 at Wal-Mart. Brought it home, considered the options, and ended up just winding one color around the top and handles of one basket.
There she is! Pretty luxe looking, right? I couldn't believe what a difference a couple bucks worth of fake leather made on this basket. And more is more, so I thought I'd add extra leather and see what happened. I was into the idea of a woven design, but I thought the time and amount of leather required would be prohibitive. But what if I could find some pre-woven leather? I had some ideas about that, and headed to my local thrift store in search of cheap belts.
Jackpot. I found these for $3 each. You know how Goodwill gets goods from Target? Well, lots of thrift stores actually get some things in bulk, so keep that in mind when you're looking to score a deal. There were a bunch of these, (from Rue 21, of all places) at my thrift store, but I thought three would do it.
This was a pretty low-tech project: I just wove the belts through the basket, and then cut off the buckles and excess and hot glued the edges to each other. It looks cute! And they turned out to be even cooler than I thought, because the reverse is black, which looks nice when you can see inside the basket. I bet this project would be amazing with some richly patina'd old stamped belts.
Next up, I decided to try a nice and easy different tack: paint.
Pretty, right? Super easy. Once the black spray paint had cured over days, I just slapped a couple coats of gold acrylic paint on there with a small craft brush. Easy-peasy. I didn't even wear my paint clothes, so I earned some gold specks on my shirt, and they're pretty, too.
Last but not least, I took a big ball of twine I had on hand and wove it around the middle of one of the baskets. It was mildly tedious, but nothing watching a couple episodes of Orphan Black while I did it couldn't ameliorate. I really, really like this one. I don't know why: It's super simple, and perhaps not incredibly special, but I love the look of it.
It changes the whole look of the basket, right? If you want to do this, I recommend using relatively short lengths of twine (say a few trips around the basket-long) because it's much less aggravating than using a really long one. Then, use little dabs of hot glue to secure the ends of twine to one another, as needed.
So I'm in love with this project. Super fun and easy. And pretty cray how different they each look, having started from the same basic black shape, no? It was also super cheap. I did spend about $13 for the belts and leather cording, but the twine and paint were things I already had - as were the baskets themselves. Look around. See any ugly baskets just dying for an upgrade? Don't hold out on them! Give them the beauty treatment they - and you - deserve.
Which one is your favorite? Mine's definitely the leather-corded top, followed by the ruggedly handsome twine guy. Thanks for reading, and talk soon!