Painted Fall Harvest Basket DIY

4 Materials
$10
4 Hours
Easy

Baskets and Fall decor just seem to go together each year. Recently I purchased several harvest baskets from a local apple barn store in our area that was inexpensive and unfinished. Perfect for a little Fall themed DIY love.

Stain the whole basket


The first thing I did to give the basket a more rustic and aged look was to apply a coat of stain all over the surface and inside of the basket, including the wood handle. Unfinished baskets are usually very porous so I applied the stain with a foam brush and used a generous amount all over.

Touch up the stain as needed


Since the stain absorbs very unevenly, after the first coat dried, I went back and touched up any areas that needed additional stain.

Start adding some color.


I really wanted this harvest basket to have some color and character so the next step was to add some acrylic paint to the outside layers of wood. I chose acrylic paint colors in fall shades like yellow, green, orange, and burgundy.

Decorate with the basket


Now that my harvest basket was more rustic and colorful to match the colors of the Fall season, it was just a matter of adding some Fall floral stems to decorate the basket to be used anywhere in my home during the Fall and Thanksgiving seasons.

By adding the acrylic paint to only the outside bands of the wood strips, it allowed the aged character of the stain to show through. The stain color is Early American by MinWax.

To fill the basket, I first filled up the bottom of the basket with grocery bags so that the pumpkins and floral stems could be placed at the top of the basket. This is an easy trick to fill up a container that doesn't show though or cost extra.

Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Donna Powell
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Go
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
  1 question
  • Karen B Karen B on Jul 31, 2020

    Does it do all right in the rain or is too porous?

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 13 comments
Next