Start with: 2 pieces of construction paper, a stapler, scissors, a pencil, and a ruler (I know not everything is pictured, but grab them all anyways. You’ll see….)
Begin by folding one piece of construction paper in half, lengthways.
Fold it in half again (so it’s in fourths).
Open it longways again, and cut it into two separate pieces.
Repeat the above folds and cut for the second piece of construction paper. You should have four halves now of paper, folded over. Set aside one pair of those (same as what is pictured above).
Lay one piece on top of the other (ex: for mine I cut simultaneously one purple and one pink). Round corners on OPEN ends with scissors. Do not cut into side with folded edges.
On side with folded edges, make a pencil mark both at the 1 1/2″ and 3″ mark. Do the same higher up on the paper. (You are attempting to make 3 evenly spaced sections)
Now you should have a paper that looks similar to mine as above. Your pencil lines should stop just below the point where you rounded the corners at the top open edges.
Cut through both layers of paper (all four layers actually) along your pencil lines.
Place your two sides in this position to make sure you cut your lines long enough. Make sure they are long enough by observing that the lines on the underside card are longer that the piece laying on top. Ex: I can see my cut lines on the pink card are visibly longer (slightly)than the width of my purple card laying on top. That’s how you want yours.
Place the whole closed purple leg into the opened pink middle leg.
Open the purple first leg back up and place the closed pink third leg into the purple leg.
One column is done. Shift your first row all the way to the left. Now for the middle row….
Take the closed purple leg on the middle row, and insert it into an opened pink first leg. Careful not to rip your paper, this one’s a tight/awkward weaving.
Open the purple leg and insert the closed pink middle leg.
Insert the closed purple leg into the opened pink third leg.
Middle row is done. Now for the last. ** Good idea to gently open the heart to make sure your weaving is going well at this point. It should look like the heart is “open” like a basket on the inside.**
Third row: Insert closed pink leg into opened purple leg.
Insert closed purple leg into opened pink leg.
Last step: Open purple leg and gently insert pink closed leg.
Check inside by opening heart. Are all the legs woven to each side like this? It’s easy to get mixed up… So, go easy on yourself if you didn’t get it on your first try. If you did get it, congratulations! You can now weave paper! Let’s add a handle now to your heart basket.
Take one of the other halves of construction paper that you cut and set aside at the beginning. Cut lengthwise up one strip, however wide you desire your handle to be. (Mine was about 1″ wide)
Staple one end to the middle of heart basket. You could also use glue if you wanted to go with the clean, non-stapled look. Staple the other end (or glue) to the other side.
