Basket weaving for 2 pm from any paper – master class for beginners

Baskets and baskets help to maintain order in the house and decorate the interior, so they are never a lot. Beautiful braids can be bought in the store, but it is much more profitable to learn how to weave them with your own hands.

• If you have a couple of free evenings and a bale of any paper, then you can weave the basket not only without financial losses, but in the right size, color and shape. And weaving baskets with our own hands is a very pleasant and pacifying process that you can do, for example, while watching your favorite movie.

And do not be embarrassed that baskets are made not from vine or rattan, because if everything is done correctly, then apparently homemade baskets from old papers will not differ from real plaits. Of course, they will not be as durable and moisture resistant, but, nevertheless, to store most of the things they will fit perfectly.

For beginners, we prepared a step-by-step master-class on weaving here such a rectangular basket made of paper-kraft with leather handles. And at the end of the article you can see several ideas for using baskets of different shapes and sizes.

Master class on weaving baskets for beginners

In this master class, we will talk about how to learn how to weave a basket of rectangular, square or round paper.

For work we will need:

• Kraft paper – you can take also bakery paper, several paper bags, packing postal paper, pages of newspapers, magazines, etc .;
• 2 identical solid cardboard or fiberboard bases cut in square or rectangular shape – you can choose cardboard if you want to weave just a basket for storage only, and if you like the idea of ​​a tray basket as in this master class, then use a fiberboard size 24 × 38 cm, a thickness of 2.5 mm.

Important: if you want to weave a basket with higher walls than in this lesson, then you will need some auxiliary template, for example, a shoebox. The template will help you to weave a basket of the right rectangular shape. The basis of cardboard in this case should correspond to the dimensions of the box.

• Wooden skewers for shish kebab or thin needle;
• Scissors;
• Any adhesive for paper and glue is stronger, for example, “Moment”, as well as double-sided adhesive tape;
• Transparent matt acrylic lacquer on a water base in a spray or jar;
• Long narrow leather belt (preferably size XL);
• 8 brass cap nuts, 8 brass screws with a flat head and cross-shaped slot, 8 brass washers (sold in construction shops, the entire set of fasteners will cost you about 70 rubles);
• An electric drill or an awl to make holes in the leather strap;
• Marker.

Instructions

Step 1. Make the tubules

To do this, you first need to cut the paper into equal formats, for example, A4 or A5. Suppose you have chosen to make a basket of old newspapers, which already have the size we need. Next, we need to cut the newspaper pages into strips – the future tubes. Here’s how you can do it quickly:

• Fully open the newspaper, and then fold it along in half and smooth the fold.
• Now take a kitchen knife or clerical knife and cut the newspaper at the folding point. It is desirable that the cutting places are smooth and uninterrupted.
• From the resulting stack of paper, separate the half, bend it along and cut again. You will get strips about 10 cm wide. Now follow the same procedure with the remaining stack of paper.
• Next, sort those stripes that have bright edges without text and pictures – it’s from these bars that you get white tubes. For work they are more convenient, because they are easier to paint under rattan or vine. But this does not mean that you can not use colored strips, just twisted from them, it is desirable to pre-coat the tubes with light paint, or paint them more densely (we’ll talk about the nuances of painting a little later).
• So, start twisting the tubes. Put a wooden skewer at the minimum (!) Angle on the very edge of the strip (but not on the white one!) And try to tighten the paper tightly on it (photo 1 and 2). First, you can do this on the table, turning the skewer and holding the paper, and reaching the middle of the tube, you can lift it up and continue twisting.

When you have only the tip, you need to lightly glue it with glue and then screw it to the end (photo 3). Woo-ala, the first tube is ready! It remains only … to wind another 100-500 such tubes (the exact amount depends on the size of the basket). Do not be afraid, it’s not too difficult and long, but patience here does not hurt.

Who wants to learn all the subtleties of the art of making tubes, we suggest to see a video lesson from Elena Tishchenko.

So, we learned the basic way how to make tubes from newspapers. However, let’s go back to the instructions.

• In this master class, the decorator first wound only 24 tubes of kraft paper strips (7×45 cm), and then about 120 more tubes (from strips measuring 7×90 cm). Why did he do it? We read further.

Step 2. Make the frame

Next, we need to make a basket skeleton. To do this, we take the basis of cardboard or hardboard and use double-sided adhesive tape or glue to attach tubes to it, keeping the same interval (2-5 cm) between them. You should get about the same design as in the photo below, but the exact number of tubes depends on the size of your base and the selected interval.

• These tubes are called vertical stands, since later they will “stand” and serve as the frame of the future basket.

• According to the idea of ​​the decorator, the main weaving of the basket must be deliberately rough, so thicker tubes were used for the walls. However, these 24 tube-struts are made thin so that in the future it would be easier to fly them. You can repeat the reception of the designer, and you can weave a basket of identical tubes.
• If desired, a cardboard or fiberboard base can be pre-coated with a cloth, for example, linen.

Next, on the resulting design, just glue a second piece of cardboard or fiberboard and press it. It is best to leave our stock for 1 day to dry.

Step 3. Begin the weaving

The base is ready, so it’s time to start the weaving! There are a lot of ways of weaving, we propose to master the most elementary – “rope”.

1. Bend the tube in half and wrap it with any vertical tube-rack (you can start from anywhere);
2. Then cross the ends of the tube as shown in the photo below. You will get the first loop.

3. Then wrap the second stand and cross the ends again. You will get the first eight.
4. Continue weaving until the horizontal tubes are exhausted. As soon as this happens, drip some PVA glue inside each and insert new tubes to a depth of 2-3 cm (their tips can be slightly bent).
5. Thus, you need to weave 7 rows, if you want to make a small basket like in our master class.

• If you want to weave a basket with higher walls, then after the first two or three rows you need to use a box-template and weave around it already. In doing so, you should periodically adjust the weave – align the racks, tighten the woven rows, etc. For convenience, the rack can be fixed in a vertical position using pegs, as shown in the picture to the right. By the way, if you want to weave a round basket, then a saucepan, a round box, pots, etc., will fit as a template.

Step 4. Finish the weaving

Finally, we finished the last row, all trimmed and corrected and took out the template-box. Now we need to finish the work beautifully. For this, the horizontal ducts with which we weaved the walls are simply cut off, leaving only 5-10 cm from their length, and we hide the ends inside the weaving (left photo below).

Great, now we take the racks. They can simply be cut off, a little by brushing the edges with glue or making a simple, but beautiful edging:

• Bend the first vertical stand 90 degrees and twist it by the adjacent rack on the right, then pull out on the outside of the third pillar. Finally, hide behind it and glue it. Repeat the action with the next vertical stand and with all the rest.

Step 5. Lubricate with varnish

Hooray! The basket is almost ready, it remains only to cover it with varnish. In this master class, acrylic lacquer is used in a spray, but you can walk on your plait with a brush.

• If desired / necessary, before the application of the varnish, the basket can be painted, but it is best to paint the tubes even before the commencement of the weave, so the coating will be more qualitative. For painting, acrylic paints on a water basis are ideal, they will give the paper a density, and quickly dry out. For more information on staining newspaper tubes, see the next video lesson from Elena Tishchenko.

Step 6. Mount the pens

1. Cut off the belt buckle and the end with the holes. Then cut the middle part of the belt into two equal parts. That’s what you should get.

2. On the wrong side of the resulting ribbons, mark the location of the 2 screws at each end of the two strips.

3. Use an electric drill, an awl or just a nail to make holes in the tapes at each mark (8 holes in total).

4. On the front side of the tape, place the washer on the hole that was drilled, screw the screws into them using a screwdriver.

5. Next, attach the handles to the outside of the basket. Each fixing screw must then enter between two rows of weave as shown in the next right photo. Then, from the inside of the basket, screw the end caps onto each of the 8 screws.

Woo-ala, the paper basket is ready!

Ideas for storing and applying baskets in the kitchen

And now we offer to be inspired by creativity and look at the ideas of “basket-weaving” and the use of wickerwork in the kitchen (turn the photo).