So what did you do last weekend? Well, I made a basket. Out of blinds.

Remember when I made this?

Out of this?

So I had a bunch of the slats left over, and in my true "I'm sure I can use these for something" style, I kept them.  Finally last weekend, I was inspired.  I decided to make a basket.  I've never made a basket before, but I figured, why not? 

So I laid out 12 of the slats, figuring they're about an inch or so.  I hate actually measuring stuff.  Then I started weaving 12 slats the other way.  I found that it was easiest to put a slat under all the others, and then pop every other slat underneath, rather than actually weaving it in and out.  I staggered every other one too, to make it easier.  Then I just slid the one slat to the middle.

So it started to look like this.

I continued until I had 12 slats each way, and it looked all loose and uneven.  So I tightened it up, little by little, starting in the middle and working my way out to each side.  The slats like to slide around, but each time I slid them a little bit tighter.

So I was thinking that I'd bend each slat up and then start weaving a slat around the outside.

It was a good idea, in theory.  But in reality, the slats are pretty brittle.  When I bent them and then un-bent them, they broke.  Oh.  That's not going to help.  Then I got frustrated and took a break until the next day.  

I really didn't want to substitute non-broken slats, thinking they would probably just break too and then I'd run out of slats and then the whole project would be in the trash and all my hard work would be for nothing!!  Original plan, find some pretty duct tape to wrap around each slat on the bottom to reinforce and repair.  Search my craft stuff looking for duct tape.  Fail. Not even regular silver duct tape.  Not even regular clean packing tape!  Grr! Where did all my tape go!!

Insert impromptu trip to the new Dollar Tree I found near my house (which I was a little too excited about finding, btw!!).  No pretty duct tape there either.  I did find some green stacking bins and assorted other things for organization.  I picked up the duct tape, walked around with it, then decided that I didn't want my pretty basket marred by ugly silver duct tape and only bought the organizing stuff.

To plan B!  Use scotch tape to reinforce/repair.  Wrap fabric around slat so no one sees scotch tape.

I found this pink sturdy looking fabric in my stash.  Cut it into 48 little rectangles, sprayed with spray adhesive and wrapped around each slat over the scotch tape.  Hopefully this will help hold the broken ones together and prevent more breakage.

I ended up with this.  And very sticky fingers!! Spray adhesive gets everywhere but I still love it!

The next part was tricky.  I started weaving slats around the outside and bending the sides up as I did them.  It didn't want to stay where I put it, but I kept going, adding more and more layers up the sides.

I used binder clips to hold slats in lower 'layers' while I added the higher layers.

One slat by itself wasn't long enough to go around the entire circumference (big word, I feel smart haha!) of the basket, so I hot glued 2 of them together.  This was waaaayyyyy too long, so I had to trim them to fit better.

So I kept going.  The lower levels got tighter as I went higher.  I could just tuck the loose end in on itself without gluing it, it stayed well.  I just kept weaving and tightening.  Tightening and weaving.

So I got it as tall as I wanted, and used binder clips to hold the top layer on all 4 corners.  As soon as I would tighten one corner on the top, the other one would pop up!  Binder clips to the rescue!

To hold the top layer (without the binder clips, that wouldn't be very pretty!)  I put a tiny dot of hot glue to hold it.

Then I trimmed the tall slats level to the top of the basket.

To finish off the raw edge I hot glued a slat to both the outside and the inside of the rim of the basket.  I put the dot of hot glue on the woven part of the basket, waited a second or two, then pushed the extra slat on.  The glue is so hot that it makes a little melt mark on the plastic slat when it first comes out of the gun.  And it burns your fingers too, so be careful!!!  (yes, I am speaking from experience!)

Be careful, it's hot!

I did it on the inside too

The finished product!!  It is actually level, it's just on my couch so it looks all wonky.

The inside!

So now I have to decide, do I want to keep my masterpiece and use it, or do I want to try to sell it?  And if I sell it, that means I have to do research to see how much I should charge for it. Hmm, that sounds like a lot of work.  Maybe I'll just keep it.