N is for Newspaper Basket

If you have read my A to Z Challenge at all, you know that I am no quitter.

I have replicated the Japanese bagel head which included me pinning an actual bagel to my forehead.

I brushed my teeth with activated charcoal to see if it really whitened teeth (it doesn't).

I helped 16 five year olds make kazoos out of toilet paper tubes and taught them how to play a song. 

I made (and ate) brownies made from black beans and avocados. 

I even attempted to make edible bowls by dipping a balloon into melted white chocolate. When the first balloon exploded, showering me and my kitchen with liquid white chocolate, did I give up?  No! I tried it again and again and again and again, each time with the same results. THEN I gave up.

Not today.

Here's the pin:

http://www.craftionary.net/
guest-post-paper-basket/

Simple enough. Weave strips of folded newspaper into a basket.

I started out the way I do all projects and recipes, with plenty of confidence. I even read scanned about half the directions and thought it would prove to be pretty easy and make a cute little basket.

I cut the strips of paper. The pinner said to cut them in two-column wide strips, a column being 1-3/4" wide. JUST SAY CUT THEM IN THREE AND A HALF INCH STRIPS.

I folded them in half, then in half again. And again. 

I started weaving the pieces together to form the bottom of the basket.

I even had a little (unsolicited) help with the weaving....

I finished the bottom, got the pieces scooted together to make a square, and wove a piece of hemp string around it to help secure the basket bottom. 

Then I got to the part of the directions where the sides of the basket get woven and read this:

"Now off to the difficult part."  Shit.

I found the instructions and the accompanying pictures to be so poorly done that I did a Google search for a better site and was led to THIS site. Shit.

I did my level best to weave the sides together per the instructions given.

Kept trying.

Kept trying.

Kept. Trying.

After two and a half hours and a thick coating of newsprint on my fingers, I did this:

N is for not going to happen.

Pinterest fail.