upcycled baskets

Can I just say I love Family Fun magazine? One of my fabulous aunties gets an extra copy at her office and always brings it to me. Here is a great upcycling craft I found in the March issue: weaving cut up strips of t-shirts into baskets! Love it! The original tutorial is for a rug made of t-shirt strips using a hula hoop for a loom. I was fresh out of hula hoops, so I skipped on to the tutorial for making smaller baskets using an embroidery hoop. 

Here is my first basket! I used one 4T undershirt, a 4T t-shirt, and one of my own tees. For this size (3" tall by about 4" at widest point) I used a 14" embroidery hoop and still had some strips left over. I loved this project so much that I attempted to do the same thing with cut up strips of plastic grocery bags. 

I love the idea of repurposing them! I always use my own shopping bags when grocery shopping, but hubby forgets... and I tend to forget at places like Target if I'm just stopping for a few things. I cut off the top handle portion and the very bottom and discarded those. The rest I cut into about 1 1/2" strips. 

I followed the same instructions, and ended up using about 5 or 6 bags for this little basket. 

It's much tinier than my t-shirt basket, about 2" tall by 3" in diameter. 

Perfect for holding the elastics I use for my coffee cozies! 

I'd really like to try a fun, colorful rug for the boys' playroom if I can find a bargain hula hoop. Again, here are the links for the tutorials if you'd like to weave your own:

Rug

Basket