Sun and Moon in my cube– DIY old basket remodeling

Cane or bamboo baskets come in all shapes and sizes. These baskets are more or less the same in their raw form, wood colored, sometimes very dull and usually thrown around in some cupboard or storage area in the house.You might have one lying around your house somewhere. I did. 


The basket I had was without handles and looked somewhat like the picture below except that mine was more curved on the sides.


This basket became my canvas and soon I transformed it into

Sun-Moon basket plaster of Paris DIY

Yes my basket now adorns my cube (at work) with a bright moon and sun motif. I use it to hide the plugs and sockets on one corner of my cube.

And now the how to of this little DIY of mine.

First take an empty basket (preferably with a large base and no handle – for other type of baskets I will do a DIY sometime later)

Clean the basket and make sure it is absolutely clean of any old dust or dirt. Now think of a design that you want to create on this basket. You can either do the design on the inside so that your masterpiece will have a border on the sides or you can do it on the back side (bottom side) of the basket. I did mine on the bottom side. The reason for this is that now I can hang my creation anywhere I want without the need of a holder.

Once we have decided on our design we can let our magic begin!

Start off by creating a mixture of your good old plaster of Paris and water to create a thin paste (see my tutorial on Plaster of Paris On My Cup on how to make a paste of plaster of Paris and water but this time add more water to it). Make sure to add enough water to make the consistency like that of a cake batter or a face pack if you may! The intent is that it should be thin enough but not watery so that you can pour it on the entire basket surface to cover the surface completely (this ways you can cover it much faster than if you were to apply it slowly all over the surface)

Now take the thin mixture and pour it on the surface of the basket (make sure you have enough old news papers lying on the workspace because you will end up spilling some of this on the workspace). Once the entire surface is covered let it rest to dry – not completely but enough so that it does not smudge on your hands when you touch it.

Next make more plaster of Paris and water mixture but this time keep it thick just like the earlier tutorial (HERE).

This is the time when you start creating your pattern. Take the thick mixture and start adding to your pattern. To create the sun/moon pattern follow the steps below:

1. Create a large circle in the center and fill it up completely. While it is still wet take a stick (thick stick is required or you can use the back of a painting brush) and draw a separator for the sun and moon in the center of the circle. This is basically a vertical diameter that you need to draw out – basically embedding a line so that the sun and moon can be differentiated.
2. Take more plaster of Paris and on the side of the sun draw out sun rays. I drew mine like we used to draw as kids to make it more fun (basically added small triangular shapes to create the rays)
3. On the sides of the basket draw any pattern that you wish (in my case random wave like patterns) or you can keep it plain if it suits your inner design.

Now let everything dry completely – it should be absolutely dry before we begin painting it. While drying the plaster of Paris seeped through to the inside in my case. You can see the image below.

Sun-Moon basket inside

For painting use any acrylic paints and paint the pattern as you like. Always paint larger areas first but darker colors last. In my case I painted the sun, moon followed by the blue background. And in the end I added the silver stars, and the sleeping eyelid on the moon and smiley face on the sun!

And here is my final product

Sun Moon basket DIY using Plaster of Paris

Have you tried remodeling any old thing lying around in your house?

And a reminder to you all - please do let me know what I should do on my nails first. I have one vote for the pussy cat and one for the golden peacock feathers. Do comment on the post Nail Art Goodies Haul From KKCenterHK.com and let me know what you wish to see first.

Till then – happy remodeling!

(P.S: images without my watermark have been taken from the web. If you own the images and wish to take them off please let me know)