Basket liner from thrifted skirt lining

The Find

This lovely basket was out on the curb one night, and I liked the color, size, and generous flat handle. It seemed like just the thing to hold some yarn supplies, so home I went with my new-to-me basket. After a thorough vacuuming and  cleaning wipe down it was ready to go back into service.

Basket: side view

Basket: top view

Basket: worn label on bottom says 'Handcrafted Philippines'

 

The Makeover

Although the basket is it relatively good shape, since I planned to store yarn inside I didn't want any possible snags on the basket sides.  Luckily I had extra smooth polyester fabric lying around from a thrift store skirt that I had deliberately shrunk in order to make felted wool for an art project.  The skirt lining became basket lining!

 

Lining material with knotted end

How did I turn this skirt lining into a basket lining?  All I had to do was tie a knot in the cut-end of the lining material, put that in the basket, fold down the finished edge over the side of the basket, and tie another small knot around the handle using the edges of the skirt back slit.

Conclusion

Here is the newly lined basket (and re-used skirt lining) ready to start serving as wool storage.

Lined basket with felted wool skirt remnant

Happy freestyling, it never hurts to be open to a variety of storage solutions. You never know what the curb-iverse will send your way!

Garden of Freestyle Delights - Hanging Garden Using Leftover Mesh Produce Bags

Mesh of a bag

Single use plastics are generally bad, and yet really hard to avoid.  One specific type of single-use plastic that seems ripe for re-use is the open-weave mesh produce bag. You know the one I'm talking about. They look like discarded fishing gear (big problem, separate topic) but contain something delicious like avocados, oranges, or onions.  To open the bag to get at the delicious delicious food you usually have to cut or rip open the plastic mesh, leading to plastic bag bits everywhere. Then what to do with this meshy mess? Can it avoid immediate transportation to 10,000 years of landfill time?

The idea

At some point a dim dim lightbulb went off in my head and I realized that if these mesh bags were rated to hold 3 or 5 pounds of produce they could also be used to HOLD PLANTS AS HANGING PLANTERS.  So. Obvious.  I just had to see if I could get rid of the labels without destroying the mesh.

Here is an example of what I started with.

Produce bag about to start a new life

Hanging garden of (something that was) eaten

After accumulating a few produce bags (shockingly quickly) I carefully removed the labels. Some brands have large labels that are just a tag on top (nicer for this project), and others like this citrus bag have big colorful plastic labels that are bonded along the whole length of the mesh. I'm sure there is a reason for this related to processing efficiency, but this style was much harder to remove without either leaving little bit of the label on the mesh, or tearing the mesh.  Good thing it was free.  Below is an example of what I ended up with.

 

Mesh bag post label removal

I had saved a set of four small hooks from some trash pile (I think they are the kind usually used to hold an over-the-door mirror if I had to guess) and they were the perfect size to fit over the fence cross pieces.  However, you could also use some string or twine to suspend these from a hook. I had some small planters that fit stably into the mesh and hung them up along the fence. Simple as can be.  The cut ends of the mesh were a little messy looking, so I gathered and folded the edges in a bit to make it look neater.  In case you're curious the plants are from left to right: begonia seedling, zinnias growing from seed, begonia seedling, nasturtiums growing from seed. If you're going to use your own mesh produce bags I'd suggest using square plastic containers instead of round ones, because you can poke the corner through the holes in the mesh to help secure the plant pot a little better.  Maybe this only matters if the hanging garden will be subject to gusts of wind. I think the blue bags came from onions, and the orange bags were from citrus purchases.  

Hanging garden, no tools required

So that's my first attempt at making a hanging garden out of leftover mesh produce bags. It keeps smaller containers away from foot traffic and adds some plant love to this awkward fence section.

Happy freestyling, and don't be afraid to experiment to make your own scavenged beauty garden setup!

How to make a plant pot out of a yogurt container

When practicing freestyle and gardening you never know what type of potential cachepot is going to come your way.  It could be ceramics, baskets, odd-shaped metal containers or even shoes, who knows. But if you want to turn something into a plant-holder there are a few essentials to consider, ok, really one essential, and that is water management. 

How will you provide drainage for the plant and prevent leakage? In my case the solution is through the reuse of plastic containers - one with holes added and one without holes.  Read on to see more.

Storage wars? Meh, a skirmish at most

It was decided that my storage needed to be prettified, thus baskets were located, baskets were acquired, baskets were stacked in a corner....

There are five of these baskets, but before filling them with stuff it was decided that the baskets would benefit from a liner. 

Luckily mother o' freestyle is in town and was willing to apply her spatial rotation skills to the construction of such liners.  My contribution was the fabric that was stripped off of couch cushions some time ago.  Never let go of fake beige suede!

Little ties on the corners help hold up the edges....

...but can be tucked inside the edges to stay out of sight.

Now for the grand reorganization of odds and ends!

Happy freestyling.

A basket for texture

Many design blogs talk about 'layering' the elements of your room, and the importance of bringing in different textures to create this more visually interesting layered look.  Message received!  So when I found a small basket I knew just what it could be, an outer container for some sort of plant. Texture on texture for the win.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the interior pot is much smaller than the basket diameter. I didn't have a perfect plastic liner for this basket, but these 'Himalayan Mix' plants from the scandi-superstore seemed voluminous enough to balance the size of the basket although they were a bit short.  The solution is that the interior plastic plant pot is sitting on top of a ceramic pot to make the whole arrangement tall enough to stand above the edge of the basket.  It also helps add a little weight and stability.  So there it is, a little corner of my universe, filled with plants. And texture.

Happy frestyle gardening.