My first paper weave basket

My first paper weave basket

Our bathroom is very small. Every single item that placed there need to have a purpose and carefully planned. I have been thinking for a while to put a small trash can or basket in the gap between the toilet seat and the wall. I didn't try to look for a small trash can online because I want to make one myself.

I have been keeping our furniture assembly manual for this purpose. In the previous month I learnt a new way to make good use of unused paper and newspaper. It's paper weaving! The idea of paper weaving is similar to basket weaving I saw a lot in Indonesia. Back in Indonesia, I had a craft class where the teacher taught us to make a simple basket using rattan. Instead of using rattan or bamboo as the material, we use the paper for paper weaving. I have been planning to make this basket for a while and finally I made it in this 3 days weekend.

Before I started, I watched a bunch of YouTube tutorial. I watched the tutorial from MsBasketry YouTube channel. I haven't googled another tutorial and so far I have no plan to do so. This tutorials are short and useful. I also made some note for myself based on the short tutorial and my own experience. You can find the note in my Paper weaving note page. I will constantly update or changing the note based on my own experience or new techniques I learn online.

Materials:

• lots of paper
• glue
• skewer
• cardboard for the base

As I mentioned before I collected all of our furniture assembly manual. I separated the manuals into two pile: a pile of ledger paper size and a pile of letter size. For my project, I used only the ledger paper size. Before I rolled them into tubes, I folded them lengthwise into half and cut them.

Ledger paper pile in the left and letter paper pile in the right

After I folded them into half and cut

There are a lot of tutorial online on how to roll the paper into tube. I also took several picture showing how I did mine.

This is what I ended up with

Lots of tubes

I had cut two pieces of square cardboard in advance. The size of the cardboard is 7" - the gap I measured between the toilet seat and the wall. I first put a generous amount of glue on the sides. You can also use a double tape if you have it. Then I placed each tube one by one along the sides. I tried to keep the distance even. Note that I put tubes on the edge of each sides. I did this on purpose to support the edge of the basket. After I finished placed the tubes that will become the vertical support of my basket (pole), I put a generous amount of glue on the cardboard. Then I placed the second cardboard on top and press it down.

Graphical explanation of what I did

Use a heavy book to press it down

I used my heavy book to press the two cardboards together and I let the glue dry for several hours. It is fine if the tubes was flattened by the process. I found that it was easier to work with the poles when the tubes are a bit flattened. I also found that it was hard to flatten the thick tube - the one made of Ikea assembly manual. How thick the tube should be depends on how sturdy you want the basket is. The thick tubes are indeed hard to work with but it will make a sturdy basket. I learnt about this after I rolled all of my tubes. I should have made my tubes thinner for this project as it will only lay down on the floor and hold the trash.

After weaved a rope-weave around the base

Before I started weaving the wall of the basket, I weaved rope-weave around the base horizontally. MsBasketry gave this suggestion to prevent holes from the rectangle base. I, actually, didn't care about the holes for this basket (I am going to put a liner on top of it). However, I still did it because I want to hide the look of the cardboard from the side. The next step is to 'fold' the tube upright to make the wall. Again this basket doesn't need to be super sturdy so I just put the tube under a tube before fold it upright.

After I 'fold' all the tubes upright

It wasn't an easy task to weave the first row of the wall. The poles being slanted making it challenging to weave while maintaining the pole upright. But I did it! I was planning to capture more picture on the work-on-progress. However, I was so absorbed into my project that I completely forgot to take picture till I was finished. Sorry about that =) Through my first paper weaving I learnt couple things that I had added to my own Paper weaving note. Right now the note wasn't super useful but for a beginner like me, it's a good enough note.

I mainly use a rope-weaving technique for my basket. Because the total number of poles in my basket is even, I need to use two tubes and rope-weaving seem to be the best weaving pattern idea. I played around with the rope-weaving on the last two row of my basket, if you notice the difference.

The inside of the finished basket

Yeah, I know the edge of the basket doesn't look good. I was having too much fun playing around with the weaving technique that I decided to try making the edge on my own way. Hmm... is it an 'official' edging technique? Who knows. I didn't watch any YouTube video to see how to end the pole. I also didn't see any tutorial about it. I was planning to do it after I finish weaving the basket but... you know the story. I tugged the end of the rope after weaving the lip a bit inside the inner basket wall and carefully cut it. When cutting the pole I also noticed it's harder to cut the thick tubes than the thin ones. One more thing to consider when weaving a basket using a thick tubes.

Of course, I also added a liner before using it as a trash can. I made the liner out of the brown package paper that sometimes comes with your order from Amazon. (I only got it from Amazon. Maybe you also get it from your online order from Walmart, Target or whatever online shop).

With the liner

If you notice, the wall of my basket wasn't perfectly vertical. There is a little bit bending here and there. The reason was simple - I didn't use any support or shape guidance when weaving this. This basket proved me why the expert like MsBasketry use a box, paint can, or anything as a support when she's weaving. I will try making a basket with a shape supporter next time for my craft table.

Happy DIY-ing,

Sherls