Vintage Hydrangeas: The Tale of the Basket

It started with this and this. I thought oh, what a cool idea.

But I couldn't think of any place I could stash a basket like it.

Then, only a few days later, I saw this.

And it was one of those lightbulb i-should-be-in-a-movie-because-of-how-surreal-this-lightbulb-moment-is moments, ya know?

I mean come on, look at how awesome that grey basket is. Have I ever mentioned how much I ~~am over the top obsessed with~~ love grey?

It happens to be the color of my new sunburst mirror, hanging proudly above the mantel. And the color of my someday couch (the one that I haven't picked out yet but I just know it has to be grey).

So I went to work.

I picked up some sisal rope at Walmart, for 5$ per 100 yards. I already had hot glue, wood glue and grey spray paint, then began the fun part.

I wanted a large basket. And I wanted it to be square.

Like this one.

Only, not $79.

Or this one, only not so hard.

Or this one, in grey.

So I came up with the genius idea of making my basket square. And I was going to use a box [that sits in my closet taking up space and collecting dust] to do it. I wasn't sure how I would do it, but I figured I'd wing it.

So I started swirling, gluing, swirling and gluing some more. Until it was the size of the box.

Then I realized I had no genius idea for how to make a circle become square. So it sat like this for a few days in my living room.

Then I caved and decided a circular basket wouldn't be so bad after all. As long as it was grey. And then, I realized I had no circular object the size of said basket bottom to act as my mold.

See, this was clearly one of my smarter days. So it sat in the living room for a few more days.

Eventually, I realized I was going to have to make my own molding.

I thought about going to the store, buying a big circle basket to use as a mold, then returning it. But that involved driving to the store.

Enter, contraption uno. I resorted to a pillow, stuffed in a trash bag. Also another one of my finer moments. And let's just say, don't try this at home folks.

After admitting that was an epic fail, I saw my bright red Williams Sonoma bowl and realized it was the exact size of said basket bottom. Score!

So I did some more quality thinking, and realized my dish currently holding apples on the kitchen table, happened to be the same circumference. Hello, contraption two.. Double score!

So with a little painters tape..

And a little more...

I had ~~another contraption~~ a molding. Woo hoo! Step 1 complete.

Step 2, wrap sisal around. Then wrap some more. And yep, keep going. I used a lot of hot glue for the bottom, but for this part I didn't use hot glue at all. I just pulled tightly and kept wrapping.

Then douse in wood glue. Sorry, I was so excited to finally have a successful contraption that I forgot to take pictures.

Let dry over night.

Spend an entire morning trying to get said contraption outside of new basket. Rip apart a layer in the bottom to cut the painters tape holding the two dishes together (the two dished refusing to come out). Cringe. Cringe again. Remove the glass dish and then push out the red bowl.

Re-glue unglued layer.

Let dry.

Take pictures. :)

Add a wine bottle for size. And just because.

Spray paint grey. Add magazines. Do a little jig.

Slide under coffee table. Sigh a sigh of relief that you now have a place on your coffee table to put your coffee, because it's no longer overflowing with magazines.