Transform A Dollar Tree Laundry Essential Into Functional And Stylish Home Storage

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Adding a decorative rope basket to your living space is a simple yet effective way to upgrade the elegance of your home. These stylish pieces are typically quite durable and versatile, and you can use them in just about any room. Plus, they come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colors, making it easy to choose the ones that best suit your interior if you're buying them in a store. However, a nice decorative basket can sometimes be surprisingly expensive, depending on where you're purchasing it. One way to circumvent these costs and still get an elegant decor element for your space is to DIY it. All you need are a few easy-to-find items from Dollar Tree.

Grab one of Dollar Tree's Stacking Plastic Laundry Baskets for the frame of your DIY rope basket. Then, all that's left to do is hot glue some Floral Garden Decorative Nautical Rope along the outside to get the desired look. Once you've completed this project, you'll have a new place to store all sorts of miscellaneous items that are cluttering your space. If you use your basket in your entryway, for example, you could put hats or winter wear in it. Plop the basket near your couch, and it's great for stashing throw pillows and blankets while creating a cohesive living room style. This might even be a solid way to add storage under the pedestal sink in your bathroom.

Before you start gluing rope around the outside of your laundry basket, decide what color you want the inside to be. White or gray can be nice and neutral, so you don't necessarily have to change anything if your laundry basket is already one of these colors. Should you want a bolder color, simply spray paint your plastic bin. Once the paint dries, take one end of your rope and hot glue it down along the bottom edge of your basket. Line the rope evenly around it, applying more glue as you go.

When you finish the first layer, push the rope up slightly so it rests directly on top of the previously glued section. Continue to wrap the rope around the laundry basket in a circular fashion until it's about an inch from the top. If you want to add handles, cut them out from a different bundle of rope, and tie them down on the inside rail of your basket, just below the top. Then, finish gluing the outside layer of the basket until it wraps around the upper edge. If you need to adjust the rope later, just warm the glue with a hot air gun.

Looking for an interesting way to mix up the look of your basket? Try using two different colors of rope around the outside, instead of just one. Rather than using jute rope, you could opt for a product like TECEUM All-Purpose Cotton Rope, which comes in a variety of bright colors like blue, pink, and yellow. Then, switch rope colors every few layers, and glue together the ends of the different lengths wherever they meet. If you don't want to see the inside rails of your laundry basket, consider using more rope to cover them up, so that the inside of the basket looks exactly the same as the outside. Or, let's say you want your baskets a bit smaller than the ones in this project. In this case, DIY your elegant storage baskets using cardboard and paper straws instead.

A big part of what makes woven rope baskets so popular is how well they can create functional value while still offering appealing aesthetics. Plus, styling them doesn't necessarily require a lot of effort. Maybe use yours to fill a dead corner or get rid of a gap below a large side table. You can put plants, books, craft supplies, or kids' toys in them. The possibilities for what you can do with your baskets are practically endless. Of course, you could also just use this project as a means of upgrading the look of your hamper.