make a WASTEPAPER BASKET out of WASTEPAPER
- Xinru Li
- Apr 16, 2017
- 2 min read
Apparently we get more newspapers than I realized since after my last blog my mom gave me an enormous pile of newspapers. And thus a project that requires even more newspaper is born!
The lesson I learned from this is that involving other people can lead to lots of new discoveries! Tell other people about mindfulness and recycling and random facts on environmental protection and eventually a small individualistic thing can make a difference!
Not all projects work out. I actually spent the majority of yesterday making two completely different (and more complicated) baskets until I realized they both wouldn't work (and thus why I didn't post yesterday) but I resulted to altering a weaving technique I learned in elementary school and it worked!
Since many people, me included, are too lazy to read, I have a video tutorial of this both on my Youtube Channel and Facebook page.
Difficulty level: hard (mainly because it took me 5 hours to figure this out)
Time required: 45 minutes
Materials needed: Newspaper, tape
So how do you make it? ​
1) Make paper strips
Cut the newspaper in half the long way and fold that into sixths to make a strip. The number depends on how you want your basket to look and how easy you want your life to be once you start making them. To make my basket, you want the length of your paper to be the perimeter of the basket, since most newspapers are the same size, just make 13 of these strips.
2) Weave the base
You want an even number of strips to make your base. For me I made a four by four base (8 strips) Use the fold of the newspaper as your guide as you weave the newspapers (over and under) in the center.
3) Weave the walls
This is where the perimeter thing comes in. Tape your remaining 5 strips into a square. Lift the non base part of the base to make walls and weave the square onto that. The over under thing applies to the walls as well so if a strip used to be on one side of the square, make it be on the other for the next square. It helps to weave at the top of the basket and push the square to its place after you're done.
4) Make the top
Using another piece of newspaper, fold it so it's twice as thick as your normal strips. Tape what's left of the vertical strips of your walls together and wrap the new piece around them. Fold what juts out of this new strip inward and tape as needed.
Would I recommend making this?
Haha nope. It was really fun to make but a mostly a waste of time. Towards the end I was only making this out of spite that my other attempts failed. If you really need a box I recommend using a shipping box or any other cardboard box. But if you really want to make this show me a picture too!
If you made this and would like to show off your awesomeness, or if you have any questions/comments/concern/wanna say hi to me, please put it in the comments below!!