In the first picture is one finished basket and the other from what I made it from. I went to Michael's craft store in my area, again you can go to any of your local craft stores and look for the Chinese take out boxes. They didn't have them in a plain color but for 2.00$ I couldn't go wrong.
from here I wanted to make the baskets look like a flower, so what I did was open it all up and remove the metal handle. I then trimmed two of the flaps to look like the others and then hot glued those trimmed pieces to look like an open flower. remember to give two sides a slit for the handle to be placed back later.
The second picture shows the after look of being glued. now to hide the zebra print design, I went to my local fabric store and bought a white broadcloth and then a nice off white cotton/silk material to be used to cover. I bought about 2 meters of each as I love having extra material around the house for other projects lol
Take one of your baskets before you glue it and when all opened up place on your material to trace the outline. I did this 8times per material per basket.
I do apologize for not having pictures showing how I placed the material but its pretty simple, using your glue gun start at one of the now petals and place a line of hot glue, then use one of your strips of broadcloth and place it on the strip of glue. slowly work your way down by adding hot glue to each fold or corner line. repeat this with all your broadcloth until your basket is covered on both inside and outside. don't forget again to make the cuts for your handle and also small holes to insert the handle to.
once the basket is covered in your first layer take your handle and a pair of pliers and place it back into the holes in which we had made. once that is done use your pliers to pinch the ends tight so that it doesn't come loose during the next steps.
From here follow the steps with the second material just as you did with the broadcloth remembering to make the slits for the handle that is now in place. once you are finished that you can add any embellishment's you like. I used a beaded ribbon that happen to match the girls dresses perfectly. We are almost done, for a little bit of detailing I cut out some small pieces of white tulle and glued them around the opening. It gave it some extra zing I guess you can say :)
For this wedding my daughters were the flower/ring bearers so to add to that I made a small ring pillow to go in the middle of the basket. It is really simple to make in a few small steps.
First measure two squares from each material big enough to fit snugly inside the basket. You can use the bottom of the basket if you like. I like to add a little extra for seam allowance. Start with your broadcloth and sew together three sides with either a sewing machine or by hand. Take some stuffing and place inside till you have a plump little cushion then sew the last side closed. Now see the top material the same way but start with it being inside out. After your done the three sides turn right side out and place small cushion inside and sew up the rest. I now used a silver ribbon and hand stitched it into the middle of the pillow forming a cushion. Now you have a ring pillow!
We are getting close to the finish, take your glue gun and put some on two sides of the pillow and carefully place inside the basket just under the handle. press firmly to the sides until glue had cooled and hardened. finish each side of the pillow with glue and your done that part. So for decorations I went to the dollar store and bought some bright colored flowers. the nice thing about these is that you can pop off the flowers and move them wherever you like on the stems. I took the white and fuchsia flowers and intertwined them to look like a cascade, I then took a pair of wire cutters trimmed the stems and stuck in the corner of the basket. add a bit of hot glue to the corner and press flowers till they hold. add glue again to outside corner just under the flower petals to keep them in place. Take 2 of the green Gerber daisies remove from stem and hot glue each to a side. that is it. you have now created your custom flower girl/ring bearer basket. I really hope all have found this easy and fun. feel free to leave a comment and always check back for more crafts!