Easy Cardboard Basket

I tried Make a Craft Paper Basket and thought it would be easy, fun, and useful to recreate this basket with cardboard.

You really only need:
Cardboard
White Glue
Scissors or craft knife
Spring clamps or bag clips

You can do this without the clamps, but I find they make your life a lot easier.

I used leftover cardboard from shipping artwork and cut out a large rectangle for the main part of the basket.

Save the other pieces for later. These will eventually become the sides and handle. My rectangle was 6” by about 14”. You could eliminate the need for side pieces by using a slightly wider base. This is what I had st hand and it was already creased.

Draw and score one line on each side of your main rectangle. I made my "gutter" sections about 2" wide to make my flaps for later. I scored them by closing my scissors and pressing and dragging them across the line.This should rip the surface layer of the cardboard and make it easier and cleaner to fold later.

Anything with a metal tip can score your cardboard.

To make the sides of the basket you need to cut some flaps from the outside to the scored line you just made. Cut flaps every to 2-4 inches.

To create the side walls of your basket you need to bend and overlap the side flaps. I added glue to the corners and started to glue them together. Once you add the glue you can clamp the sides flaps together until the glue dries.

Once your side flaps are dry you can add side panels to cover the sides.

I cut mine out of the pieces with the safety standards and labels on them. You could eliminate the need for these by cutting wider side flaps.

You may not need to do this if you made your flaps larger that mine. I used clamps to hold mine while it dried but I used a bowl as a weight to press down the other side.

You can then glue and clamp on your extra strip for your basket's handle.