holiday baskets

Occasionally, I get hit with inspiration. Sometimes it happens in the shower. Sometimes it happens when I'm exercising (although, that hasn't been happening a whole lot lately). Back in April, it hit me while I was rummaging through a million semi-organized storage totes, searching for Jed's Easter basket.

When I finally found the Easter basket, it was squashed to an almost unrecognizable shape by Jed's plastic Halloween pumpkin and I had to rely on my Boy Scout Basketry merit badge skills to reshape the poor thing. The injustice of one holiday candy holder being squished by another really got me thinking. There has to be a way to combine the two in an easy to store way. So I set out to make one. Actually, two. Because eventually baby brother will need one, and why not save myself some time?!

I decided we needed something cloth, so it could be easily foldable. I decided to use the same pattern, slightly modified, for the baskets I made for our closet storage, and just add handles.














The baskets turned out great and I was really happy with them. But I thought they needed some decoration, so you could tell which holiday you were celebrating (as if it won't be totally obvious). So I made some felt creatures to be attached to the baskets.

































For Easter, an egg and a bunny.


































And for Halloween, a pumpkin and a ghost.




















I used sticky-backed Velcro to attach the decorations to the baskets. It was a little tricky to place the Velcro on the different shapes in exactly the same place, but I am pleased with how they turned out.

As you can see above, each basket has a complete set of pumpkin, ghost, egg and bunny, and they attach on either side. That way, no matter what side of the basket is showing, you'll be able to see the decoration for the holiday.


 













I am so pleased with how this little project turned out. I love the different shapes and I had so much fun doing all the hand sewing. Jed has already been playing with them quite a bit and I am excited to see him use his basket for trick-or-treating come Halloween. For now, I can just flatten them and put them in storage!