A Tale of Two Baskets

Hello Everybody!

Katy here and today I am here to share with you "A Tale of Two Baskets."

I found the first one at a thrift store a few months ago.  Then this past weekend at the same thrift store I found one very similar to the first-so I had to buy it!  I knew I could transform these little baskets into something fun using my Unique Laser Designs embellishments.

The first thing I did to these baskets (after giving them a quick swipe with a wet paper towel to remove dust) was to paint them with gesso.  I could have spray painted them maybe-but I am generally not a spray paint person.  So I used what materials I have on hand.  

So far so good.  When the first coat dried, I added more gesso where I missed before.  I gessoed the handles and the insides of both baskets.

While these gessoed baskets are drying, I looked through to see what fun ULD pieces I was going to use.  These baskets are for a friend of ours two daughters.  They are coming into town and I thought it would be a nice gift to put a nice lotion in each basket.  

So here are the pieces for one basket.

And here are the gears for the second basket.  One of the young ladies is into robotics at school.  So I thought girly cogs would be fun.  :)

Here are the quick links to the pieces here:  

Daisies (I used a med one)

Tweety Birds (3 pc set) (I used the smallest tweety bird)

Bird Cage (2 pc) Small

Gears Set C 

(I omitted the gear from the bottom left in the final design.)

Now it's time to decorate the baskets.  For the first one I used Dylusions Spray After Midnight.  I used my fingers to help spread the ink over the handle.  As inky as my hand looks here-it washes off really easily. 

Once the basket dried, I sprayed Perfect Pearls Mist-silver-to give it a shimmer look.  I did encounter one problem here.  After I thought this basket was dry-I picked it up to have purple on my hands. I sprayed Deco Arts Triple Brilliant Gloss Glaze in hopes of sealing the basket.  I had glued Tim Holtz's tinsel to the basket (using Zip Dry) so I sprayed that as well.

Here is the 2nd basket.  I used Tim Holtz Distress paints-peeled paint, spun sugar, and broken china.  The only thing is that it stared to look a bit like an Easter basket.

Here is the 2nd basket.  I used Tim Holtz Distress paints-peeled paint, spun sugar, and broken china.  The only thing is that it started to look a bit like an Easter basket!  But not to worry!  I used some Walnut Stain and Faded Blue Jeans Distress Inks to grunge the basket out a little bit. ;)

So here are the 2 baskets all finished!

I left the daisy in its natural state to go with distress background.

Here is the back of the basket.  It's not quite so springtime now. ;)

Here is the little tweety bird in the cage.  The cage have been heat embossed with silver embossing powder.  The birdy is painted with Distress Mustard Seed and his beaked is orange from a copic marker.  And then I had to add a goggly eye of course!

I tied it to the top with a piece of thin yarn.

Here are the gears with embossing powder.  I hope they are girly enough!  I used a silver trim that was on my desk (and really what isn't on my desk?) to go through the white gear.  It is just covered in gesso.  This is so the other gears would adhere to it.  (Believe me when I say it is very difficult to glue things onto embossed items.)  I used Zip Dry to glue the 3 embossed gears onto the main gessoed gear.

Here is a side view so you can see the ribbon.

Here is the ribbon tied in a nice bow in the back.  

Here is each basket by itself.

Thank you for stopping by today!  I hope that you are inspired to look at baskets differently!  Maybe you have some at home already that could use a little makeover.  Unique Laser Designs are perfect for your basket makeovers!

For more fun ideas check us out on Pinterest!