MORE picnic baskets!

YEP!  I keep finding them.  No one else wants them so they sit in the thrift store until their color tag goes on sale for half price and I grab them up!!

This one needed a bit of repairs where the braiding is.  A bit of tacky glue and a few carefully placed finishing nails solved that issue.

The slat part is super fast and easy to ‘dry brush paint’.  Then I use a small foam roller to paint the lid; two coats, inside and out.  Use the dry brush on the braided handles too!

Then I sand the lid, inside and out.  (oops, a little paint drip on the inside!)

The base of this one was particle board (which I LOATHE!!!!)  And it had a few water mark type stains that bugged me.  So I grabbed an old atlas and my jar of Mod Podge and covered the inside base.

I had just received some new stencils, so I used one on the top of this basket.  I just can’t seem to leave these spots ’empty’!  They feel too much like a ‘blank canvas’ to me!

Finished off with a couple of coats of matte varnish.

This small one was in VERY good shape too.  And while the bigger ones ARE more popular than this size; it always looks cute to have various sizes in a stack.  These are a good size for storing kids toys in too.  A pretty basket that you can slide under the coffee table and pull out as needed.

Always remember to check for clean ‘innards’!  I’m so happy that they aren’t adding those fabric liners as often anymore!  HATE those things!

Again with the dry brush technique.  It LITERALLY will take less than five minutes to paint the entire thing!

I continued the paint to the inside trim on the lid on this one; then sanded it a bit.

Since I couldn’t add any ‘decorative features’ to the lid of this one since it wasn’t flat, I decided to STAIN the inside and over the top of the dry brush paint on the outside.

It’s a very SUBTLE color difference.  A greyish brow
n, like cedar fence boards naturally turn with age.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . . now that I look at this again, it might be fun to hand letter some kind of saying around the trim on the top of this one???  Any ideas?

I TRIED to put these two photos ‘side by side’ so you could compare the color difference; but it just wasn’t coming out right.  I hope this is good enough!

This is BOTH baskets, side by side.  The big ‘just painted’ one at the back; and the painted and stained smaller one at the front.  VERY subtle aged wood look.

The bigger basket has already sold.  The smaller one is stashed away until after the holidays.