Rainbow Easter Basket

Yup, this little Easter basket is made from cardstock! We printed strips in a rainbow fill for the body of the basket and made solid fill strips for the top edge and the handle. It's even filled with "grass" made from a sheet of regular paper, printed green on both sides, and cut into teeny slivers with a paper trimmer. Fill this basket with our Photo Eggs, filled with candy, also in our PROJECTS section, and watch the eyes of your favorite children light up with joy!

MATERIALS

110 lb. cardstock (or the heaviest your printer will handle)

Paper trimmer or scissors (trimmer makes this job MUCH easier!)

Glue stick

Plain paper or Easter grass from your local craft store

NOTE: You can protect this project by applying a coat of PYMII.

INSTRUCTIONS

1) Open a blank page in your graphics program. Draw a rectangle 3/4" wide and 8" long. Fill it with a pastel rainbow fill and no outline. Copy and paste this rectangle three times so that you have a total of four filled strips lined up right next to one another. Group the four rectangles and center them on the page. Print this on a sheet of cardstock.

2) Print the same page on the other side of the cardstock. Be sure you feed the paper in so that it prints the same as the first side. This will depend on your printer manufacturer.

3) Open another blank page and draw a rectangle 3/4" wide and 9" long. Again fill with a pastel rainbow fill and no outline. Copy and paste twice so that you have a total of three of these longer strips side by side. Group them and center on the page. Print this page on another piece of cardstock, again on both sides.

4) Now you need to make a 17" strip for the sides weave. This will entail gluing two strips together to get the length you need. Open another blank page and draw a rectangle 3/4"" wide by 9" long with a rainbow fill and no outline. Copy and paste this rectangle once so that you have a total of two. Group and center on the page. Print again on both sides of one sheet of cardstock.

5) You need to make another 17" strip for the top edging. You can use the page with the rectangles you made in the last step, just change the fill to a pastel solid with no outline and increase the width to 1 1/2" since you will be folding this strip in half lengthwise so that it folds over the tops of the rainbow strips. (Have we totally confused you yet?) Print this out on one side of a sheet of cardstock.

6) Open another blank page and draw a rectangle 1 1/2" wide by 9" long, solid pastel fill and no outline. This will be the handle. (Once you've cut it out you're going to fold it in half lengthwise so that it has some added strength.) Print this on one side of a sheet of cardstock.

7) Cut out all the strips. Take the four shorter rainbow strips and fold them at 2 1/2" from each end.

8) Take the three longer rainbow strips and also fold these at 2 1/2" from each end, just as you did with the first four shorter strips.

9) Take the two remaining 9" long rainbow strips and glue them together so that you have a piece that is 17" in length. Do not fold this strip.

10) Take two of the 1 1/2" X 9" pastel strips and glue them together so that you have a solid colored piece that is 17" in length. Fold this down the center lengthwise.

11) Take the remaining 9" strip, which will be used for the handle and fold it down the center lengthwise. (If you have a paper trimmer with a scoring attachment, that will make this easier.) Open the handle back up, lie it flat with the blank side up. Apply a glue stick to the entire inside of the handle and fold it back in half, pressing firmly to adhere.

12) Flatten out all the rainbow strips and lay the shorter four next to each other about 1/4" apart. Take the four 9" rainbow strips and "weave" them through the shorter strips to make the base for the basket. Do this without gluing first so that you can make certain you have them all lined up correctly. Once you're satisfied with the layout, begin gluing the strips together wherever they lie on top of each other. The easiest way to do this is to lift a strip, place the glue stick where you want the glue and simply twist. This will leave a small circle of glue just where you need it. Proceed with the rest of the glue joints until you have all the pieces glued together on the bottom of the basket.

13) Fold each piece again where you had it folded originally so that the sides of the basket are standing up. Start to feed the 17" long rainbow strip around the sides, weaving in and out as you did with the strips for the base, gluing and folding as you go. Trim off any excess when you get back to the beginning.

14) Take the 17" long solid pastel strip. This will be used to cap the top exposed edges of the rainbow strips. Lie the long folded strip open, blank side up, and apply glue to the entire surface. Now place it over the edges of the rainbow strips, one at a time, folding and pressing to adhere as you go around the entire edge of the basket. Again, trim any excess when you get back to the beginning.

15) Take the remaining 9" pastel strip that you have folded in half and apply glue to both ends. Press these ends in place on the inside of the top edging. You can either gently fold the handle as we did or leave it rounded.

16) To make the grass simply print a pale green on both sides of an entire page of plain paper. Using you paper trimmer, cut tiny strips, about 1/16" wide. Scrunch them up when you have them all cut and you have your own paper "grass"!

The directions might sound a bit confusing, but once you get the hang of this, you'll be making baskets for every kid in the neighborhood! Fill them with Easter candies or use our plastic Photo Easter Eggs (see PROJECTS section) and fill the eggs with the candy!

Rainbow Easter Basket Instructions

For a print friendly version, click on this link.