DIY Numbered Burlap Basket

While redecorating our laundry room, I was searching for new baskets/bins to tidy up the look on the open shelf. To give the room a more peaceful, completed feel. I managed to re-use two fabric bins from our old house and quickly found a nice handled basket at HomeGoods to store all our Swiffer products (yes, we have a lot of those!). But I couldn't find another like it. I wanted either a match or something that would coordinate nicely with what I had and tall enough to store all our lightbulbs. Yes, I did just say I was searching for a bin to store our lightbulbs.

My most recent search led me to Marshall's where I discovered a burlap basket in the clearance section for $7.50. The size seemed perfect so I scooped it up immediately with simple plans to alter it.

Going along with the trend of numbered decor and still excited about how easy & well my freezer paper stencil sharks turned out at Halloween, I decided I could do the same to the basket. I already had all of the materials.

First, I measured the distance from the handle to the bottom of the basket to determine a height for my number. I then used Photoshop to select a font and size the '1' (you could easily do this in Word or Google Docs, etc).

After printing the '1' onto regular 8.5x11 paper, I traced it onto freezer paper and cut it out using my X-acto knife. Then determined placement on the basket.

The ironing was a tad tricky only in that the basket has soft sides. I held it carefully and ironed lightly to tack it before moving it to the end of my ironing board so I could press down. I used the cotton setting and pressed it firmly twice.

Once I felt confident the freezer paper was secure, I let it cool and then painted it with fabric paint and a foam brush. I personally like the cheap foam brushes - easy to blot & dab the paint on.

After painting, the directions said to let it dry up to 4 hours. I didn't. I cheated. I was painting it in my bathroom anyhow so I got out the hair dryer to speed things up! After a minute or two, it seemed dry and I pulled away the freezer paper.

Literally, this project took me maybe 15 minutes start to finish. It helped that I had my idea, had experience with the freezer paper stenciling (really, so easy - if you haven't tried, go for it!), and used the hair dryer to speed up drying. The result is a fun new basket for our laundry room.

And, yes, it really was all for lightbulb storage.