Ombre painted picnic basket

Awhile ago I found a picnic basket discarded  for council collection on the side of the road. I grabbed it as I love all things shabby chic and could see this had great potential . This Easter weekend I actually used the picnic basket as we had a lovely Easter Picnic in the park.
But I couldn't help but think the basket was in need of a make over. I had seen some lovely ombre paint make over posts on pintrest and decided that's what i would do.

I gathered my materials

1. Three cans of paint ( as this is what i had chosen to use)
2. A brush to give the basket a good clean
3. A small paint brush to get into the little spots

I had too use a little bit of glue to fix some of the cane that had come loose on the handle. I then gave the whole basket  a good brushing over with a small hard brush.

 For this project I chose two shades of pink and a white. As Ombre  was the look I was going for I started with the darker colour first.

Using only my sight line  I divided the basket into virtual thirds ( as I was using three colours) If you were using more colours such as 4 you would divide it into fourths etc

 My colours were a dark pink a lighter pink and white.The dark pink is a custom colour I had mixed at a paint store i think i found the colour in a magazine.

I then moved to the the lighter colour called  BARE PINK

However once I had done the two colours I loved it the way it was and decided to leave it at the two shades of pink and the natural of the cane.

PAINT USED

I am thrilled with the results, I then moved on to the lining, which I did by taking apart the green and blue checked lining that was already in the basket and used that as a template to cut new pieces out.

I found this gorgeous shabby chic style fabric that I found at Spotlight.

The finished result!!

I am so happy with the result and I cannot wait to take it to the next picnic with my beautiful vintage napkins and flat wear.