Simple Basket Liner

by: Holly

This past weekend, I joined my boys on our church's annual camping trip (I say that I "joined" them because this hasn't always been the case).  It was a great weekend of hanging out with great friends and enjoying the beautiful outdoors.
That being said... it was SO much work!  Camping is a tough job, especially when you've got to get everything ready to go, AND everything re-ready to enter your house after it is over.  There is still a mound of campfire smelling laundry blocking our garage door.  (Next week I'll get to it.  I promise.  Just hop over it.)
So what does this have to do with a simple basket liner, you ask?  Well, in the "putting everything back together" stage after we got home, my husband decided to do a little garage cleaning before the camper, once again, blocked an entire section of shelving in our garage.  He found 2 baskets full of old VHS tapes (remember them?).  Now the tapes themselves will be finding good homes elsewhere, but the baskets were emptied and left by the back door.  In my never ending search for great storage, I thought maybe I could spruce them up a bit to store fabric in.  Here is the solution that I came across...

Super easy basket liner.  Here is what you need if you want to make one...

A basket (duh)
fun fabric (how much depends on the dimensions of your basket)
measuring tape
scissors
hole punch
coordinating ribbon
*optional- I chose to coat my fabric with vinyl so that I could just wipe it clean if I needed to.  You can also find some cool oil cloth out there that would save you this step.
iron-on vinyl
iron

First, you need to measure the inside of your basket, up the sides, and add about 8 inches for the fabric to hang over the sides of the basket.

You want to cut a strip of fabric lengthwise and a strip of fabric widthwise, so measure both ways.  Then you cut your two strips of fabric.

At this point, I laminated my fabric following the package instructions.  Another nice thing about laminating it, is that you can trim the edges nice and neat and you don't need to worry about fraying or hemming.
Next, I layered the fabric in my basket.  Width piece across the bottom and over the sides and length piece over the top of that with the edges hanging over the front and back of the basket.

 Then I used my hole punch to punch holes about an inch up from the bottom of the fabric at the corners.

Then I put the ribbon through the holes and tied a bow at each corner.

Here is the finished product in her place of honor, the laundry room...

Now this may not be exactly the use that my husband intended for these baskets.  But they're pretty, simple, and practical.  And after a weekend of camping, they bring me joy in this little room that I will be spending A LOT of time in for the next few days... or weeks... or however long it takes me to get that smell out of our clothes.  Happy Tuesday everybody!