Where to Buy Baskets

Where to Buy Baskets
When shopping for baskets, search high and low to make your basket collection diverse and unique. Baskets come in many sizes, shapes and materials such as willow, rattan, bamboo, rope, palm leaf, wire and rags.
Many baskets also are adorned with metal garnishes, dried coco flowers, gugo vine handles and more. But you can always easily dress up and personalize even the plainest looking basket if you want to do so. Many artisans dye basket materials, which gives you lots of color choices and opens more avenues for you to use baskets in your home to spruce up its vibrancy. Baskets are an international item, both in their origin and usage. Many have been handcrafted in places like the Philippines, Haiti, Nigeria, China and more. Baskets can be found in many local stores, including craft stores, and at flea markets and craft shows such as at festivals. A well-known direct sales home party system selling baskets is The Longaberger Company (www.longaberger.com). I've never owned these baskets but I have come across people appreciative of their products. Several bricks and mortars specialty retail stores carry baskets such as Pier 1 Imports (www.pier1.com) and Home Goods (www.HomeGoods.com). Even Wal-Mart (www.walmart.com) has an interesting selection of baskets these days (check in the sewing and craft section, often in the back of the store). Craft stores like Michaels (www.michaels.com) sell baskets too. Another store that sells baskets is seasonal home décor' retailer Tuesday Morning (www.TuesdayMorning.com). If you're looking for variations of wire baskets for your office, try office supply stores such as Office Depot (www.OfficeDepot.com). You'll find a lot of the traditional rectangular letter trays and cylinder pencil cups in wire designs there. Fancier wire baskets, such as heart shapes, are found beyond the office supply stores. Find multi-tiered wire or metal baskets, such as you'd store 10 pounds of potatoes in, at a store that sells cooking accessories (often found in outlets or malls too). Of course, if you've got plans to decorate baskets as a project with your kids (or even a whole class or troupe of kids), consider stocking up at holidays like Easter when you'll see stores that don't usually carry baskets, or a huge selection anyway, with a bin full of them prominently displayed. With the growing popularity of the Internet, more independent basket retailers are appearing online too. For instance, surf the Web and you might find places like The Basket Lady.biz and Wild About Baskets. Naturally, another place to get baskets is as part of gift sets or packaging given to you for special occasions. Mention to friends and relatives that you collect baskets. Some people have no interest whatsoever in saving, collecting or displaying baskets (yes, it's true), in which case they'll be perfectly happy to part with it since they would probably trash it otherwise. You can make use of even the ruddiest basket someone gives to you by practicing some of the embellishment techniques on it that are mentioned in other portions of this website. After all, you don't want to start right away with practicing adorning your most treasured basket, do you? Of course, I would be amiss not to mention that some baskets are expensive works of art and considered collectors items. You don't want to decorate those. That would be like fixing up an antique---takes away from the value and originality of the one-of-a-kind artwork. The best baskets to decorate for fun craft projects are your ordinary, inexpensive neutral color baskets...the kind you find for less than $10 in mass retailers.