DIY Rope Basket

I did it!! I made my own basket. That’s what you have to do if you can’t find what you want… when you want it. And I would do it again and just might.

It all started when we received a snake plant from my sister for our anniversary last week. I took off the wrapping and saw it needed to be repotted so I did that but it still looked naked.

Most of our plants sit in either an apple basket, woven basket or crock of some sort (I don’t like to see the pot unless it is terra cotta) , so after a quick internet search, I decided to attempt making a basket out of rope and glue.

I didn’t just jump in all willy nilly, there was a bit of planning involved. I needed rope after all. The internet also told me there was just what I needed at our local Canadian Tire.

Next I needed something to wrap the rope around to get the shape correct and decided to try this crock. Perfect size.

Armed with just rope and a glue gun I began the tedious task of glueing and wrapping, glueing and wrapping etc etc etc beginning with the bottom.

The cardboard cutout was a guide so I would know how big to make it.

Now for the sides. I didn’t want to glue the basket onto the crock so I wrapped it in parchment paper. Did you know nothing and I do mean nothing sticks to parchment paper? Not even tape. Had to wrap the tape all the way around sticking it onto itself.

At one point, Jim jumped in to give me a hand. I glued and he wrapped the rope. So. much. faster. In no time we had reached the end of the parchment paper.

Oh and we ran out of rope. Doesn’t look like it but that is 100 feet of rope and it wasn’t enough. Had to go pick up a second pack. I cut the end of the rope with sharp scissors and used thread to sew the end so it wouldn’t fray. On the new pack I did the same to the new end and then glued them down together.

I had reached the handles on the crock and wasn’t finished the basket so Jim and I had to pull the crock out of the basket, just raising it up high enough so I could continue. The glue and rope didn’t stick to the parchment paper but it did stick to the green tape. Lord.

In order to get the basket off the crock there was a little of this…

And a lot of this…

See the green tape… it came of with some persuasion.

This basket needed handles and we happened to have some leather left over from another project. I cut them to size with an exacto knife.

Jim drilled four holes in each end of the leather strips.

We added the handles by sewing them on in an X pattern to each side of the basket. Not easy sewing through glue. We may or may not have used pliers to pass the needle through.

Ready to see it?

Wanna see it closer??

I tell ya…it’s the small things in life.

Later