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Hi, I'm Katie Crooks, Public Programs Coordinator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery,
and today I wanted to show you a different craft project that goes along with our Handi-Hour program that we hold at the Renwick Gallery.
Today's craft is going to be a paper basket.
I have 2 examples here.
They're pretty simple baskets.
You'll notice they come in slightly different widths.
I'm going to give you specific measurements to create these baskets today,
but you can play around with the measurements and really make these any size.
First thing you're going to want to do is get together all of your materials.
To make these baskets, it's pretty simple and straightforward.
You're going to need a piece of paper that measures 12 x 10 inches,
and you're going to need 4 strips of paper that measure 12 x 1 inch.
I think contrasting papers or the more decorative the better.
These are all scrapbooking type papers,
so not an extremely heavy weight of stock but still slightly more substantial than your regular printer paper.
You're also going to need a pencil, a ruler, a pair of scissors.
Paper clips are not necessarily but super handy.
You'll see why in a few minutes...
...and some glue sticks.
So I'm just going to get started.
Basically what you're going to do is make a few measurements and a few folds,
and then you're going to make a few cuts and then you glue everything together.
It's really very easy.
You can choose whether or not you want to start orienting your paper portrait or landscape.
So this would be landscape, where the width measures more than the height.
Portrait would be the height measures more than the width.
Either will work just fine.
I'm going to go ahead and do this so the paper is facing me landscape-style.
You're going to make 4 different lines on your paper with your pencil and ruler.
Make sure you draw the lines very lightly so that they're easy to erase later.
So from one edge, I'm going to measure 7 inches in,
and then I'm going to do that so that I can make a straight line.
So I'm going to do that measurement, draw a light line down here, and then I'm going to do 7 inches from the other side.
Then from the top and bottom, I'm going to do the same thing drawing 6 inches.
Once I've done that--and I already have one done to speed things along for us--
you're going to fold your edges toward those lines.
So the lines I drew were very faint, so they'll be easy to erase.
You probably won't even be able to see them.
But you'll take your left side and fold it towards that 7-inch mark and make a good crease.
So essentially your flap is 3 and a half inches tall.
You'll do the same thing with the other side, folding it towards that crease,
and then you'll do the same thing with the 3 inches both for the bottom and the top of the paper.
So when you get done, the folds make a grid-like pattern.
I drew my lines very faintly; I'm not going to erase them right now just for this demo.
But for your finished product, you'd want to go ahead and take those out.
Next, take your scissors, and you're going to make 2 cuts.
Depending on if you want a long or short basket,
you can cut either here and here
or here and here.
I'm going to go ahead and make my cuts at this end so that I'll be doing my folding over on the short end.
So basically what I'm doing is I'm cutting on the fold up until I meet this crease here.
So I'm going to do that twice on this side.
Do your best to make nice, straight lines and to not go past that fold there.
So it'll look like this.
I'm going to go ahead and do that on the other side exactly the same way,
cutting straight along the crease that I made without going across the horizontal crease.
So when you get done, it looks a bit like that.
You can go ahead... even now, you'll see what we do is if you fold the pieces up together,
you can see how they fold into a box-like shape.
So we're going to be doing some gluing and folding to finish everything off.
What I like to do is lay the basket flat, and I grab my glue stick.
For this flap, what I'm going to do is I'm going to fold it up so that this flap is behind the middle and this flap is in front.
So I do that ahead of time so that I can make a mental note as to where the glue will be.
So kind of play around with your paper first;
make sure that where you're going to glue it, everything will be covered and in line.
So the best way for me to do this is to have the biggest flap that sticks up a little bit more--
that one should be over everything else so that you don't see any additional lines.
If I did it like that, you'd see this edge right here.
So then glue your surfaces.
Put on a good amount of glue.
Then I'm going to put some glue on this flap here.
Then fold that up like so.
Then just to make sure I got it all good, I'm going to push against the table and just press it down.
You'll see that there's a little bit of overhang here.
I'm just going to put a little bit of glue right on that overhang and fold it in.
I'm going to go ahead and do the exact same thing on the other side.
Go ahead and get glue on my edges, put those together, a little extra glue on this flap here.
Push it up, press it down, and then go ahead and put a little extra glue on the overhang tab and fold it in.
So you should be left with a pretty even, nice box.
The next thing that you're going to want to do is add a handle,
so you take those 1-inch strips that you have and put glue all but on the last half inch of each edge of one of the strips.
So I stop before I get to the end.
You'll see why in a second.
Take another strip and glue them together.
Make sure you glue them so that they match up
and then so your pattern is on the outside to make sure both sides have the decorative pattern.
The reason we didn't put any glue in here is because you're going to want to be able to separate it,
put a little glue on it, and then add it onto the edge like that so it stays pretty secure.
So put a little glue on both sides once you've separated, find about the middle,
go down about a half inch, and pinch it on.
This is where those paper clips come in handy.
You can go ahead and paper clip it just so it has a little extra reinforcement.
Then go ahead and do the other side.
A little glue on the edge, about a half inch down, pinch, and paper clip.
Then the only thing you have to do to get the finished product is take your other 2 strips and glue them around the edge.
What I like to do when I do this part is I just make a fold, and I orient it at a corner.
Then before I actually glue it on, I try to estimate about where the corners are, and I make folds.
That'll make it a lot easier when you glue it on at the end.
Once you've glued that strip on, you end up with finished baskets.
Depending on your starting size of paper will depend on how exactly they turn out,
and depending on which way you fold them up, you might have one that is long and skinny like this one here
or one that's a little bit more squat and fat like this one, which is how this one will look in the end.
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