I'm so pleased to be one of Lori's guest bloggers. I hope her vacation is going wonderful. She said yall like 3-D projects so I made a little basket I've been wanting to CASE for a month or two. 
I saw a simular basket a while back on Gretchen Barron's blog. I love the texture and how it makes the Baskets and Blooms die look like a beach bag. I layered the 1" strips onto a piece of Crumb Cake cardstock and cut it with the Basket die. I cut off the edge with the dotted line since I wasn't making it a round basket. I made a basket using this die and base pattern at the LNS stamp camp at the Stampin' Up convention. The base for the basket is a 5 1/2" X 7" piece of cardstock. I scored it at 2" in on all 4 sides and clipped in to the score line on the 7" side and snipped off the corners. They would show through the handle of the basket if they weren't stnipped down a little. Here is the pattern 
When putting the basket together, adhere the larger center tab to the basket and then fold the 2 sides until they are lined up with the edge of the basket and stick them down.
It is a very quick and easy way to make a basket, if you want to make it a little wider you could make it 6 or 6 1/2" wide instead of 5 1/2". There are so many ways to decorate the little basket, I went a bit simple with a bow to tie the handle together and a flower made with the 5-Petal Flower punch embellished with a Rhinestone Brad. What would you put in such a cute little basket?
