I’ll bet each and every one of you has an Easter basket tucked away in a closet or the garage that you don’t like. Maybe it’s out of style or maybe it’s a little damaged, and you can’t bring yourself to throw it away, but you don’t use it either. I’ve got one, and in my case, there was nothing really wrong with the basket — I was just tired of it after using it over and over for again.

I was inspired by some leftover fabric that Jo had given me from her Easter clothes pin wreath project. I found some bits of matching pink and blue satin ribbon and a scrap of leftover batting to go along with it. Hmm, everything I used in this project was a leftover scrap. Awesome! Projects like this one really justify my pack rat tendencies to save every useful bit of crafty materials I have.

I started by hot-gluing the ends of the two ribbons to the bottom of the handle, at an angle. You could use one ribbon instead of two, but I wanted a striped effect. I let the two ribbons overlap slightly and started wrapping them around the handle.

I kept going up until the handle was covered, and I glued the ends of the ribbon down with more hot glue.

Then I started attaching the batting by wrapping it around the sides of the basket, lining up the bottom edge with the bottom of the basket. A few dots of hot glue here and there held it all in place. I left plenty of batting sticking up over the top, and I used scissors to cut a slit in it by each side of the handle.

Then I just folded the edges down, trimming as needed to make sure they covered the sides of the basket but just barely touched the bottom. A little more hot glue and everything was secure.

Next up was the fabric, and I just laid the basket down and wrapped the fabric around, making sure to leave plenty of extra on the top and bottom.

Since I wanted to keep the needle and thread at bay, I finished the seam off by just folding it under and attaching it with a little more hot glue. Seriously, how did we ever survive before hot glue?

To cover the bottom of the basket, I just folded the fabric in a bit at a time, trying to keep the edges smooth. I attached each fold with — you guessed it — hot glue!

For the inside of the basket, I cut slits in the fabric just like I had done for the batting before. Then I folded the fabric in, pulled it snugly, and glued it in place. I trimmed it somewhat, but didn’t worry about the edges much, because I knew I was going to cover them in a minute.

To cover the edges, I cut a circle of scrap cardboard to about an inch smaller than the basket. I tested to make sure the cardboard fits the bottom of the basket fairly snugly so that I didn’t waste time and fabric in the next step. Once I had a good size, I covered it with some fabric, gluing it onto the back.

Then I just pressed the covered cardboard into place and the basket looked so much more finished!

As a final touch, I used the rest of my ribbon to tie a double bow onto the side of the basket.

You would never know this was the same basket as before, would you? What an easy and affordable way to create a custom basket that suits your needs exactly.