A Tisket A Tasket...A Turquoise Basket....

For Valentine's Day I received this:

  It is huge. It is metal.  I love it.  And while I know that many people just adore the rusted look, I wanted something not quite so rusted/shabby.  Plus, where some of the paint was coming off, it shed on things and it hurt if it poked fingers.  So I wanted to paint it, yet still let it look eye-catching. 

I

 I started by scraping down any loose paint.  Then I primed it.

 

 I put the basket on top of another basket to do the spray painting/primer.

 After the primer, I chose to spray paint it a color that would make the basket stand out (like it didn't just on sheer size!).  I did not take pictures of me spray painting it the next color, but I do have pictures of the finished product. (It was during the cold winter days that I did this, so I was trying to hurry!)

   I painted the basket turquoise (just in case you didn't read the title of the post). As you can see, the basket is big enough to hold three full size pillows (and then some!).  I liked it turquoise, but it was a little too bright for the look I was wanting.

     I have no idea what color the turquoise is.  It was the only spray paint can of (nice quality) turquoise paint at Lowe's.  I kept it looking like this for the rest of the winter.  But as soon as the weather was nice, the basket went back outside for a little 'stain' action.

   If you look closely, you can see where I toned the color down some.

  For summer I am going to keep it out on the deck full of ferns.  It looks great.  So my sweet little Valentine's present went from this:

   To this:

   LOVE IT!!!!!!!   I have linked to these two lovely Southern women:
http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/2010/04/welcome-to-64th-metamorphosis-monday.html

http://southernhospitalityblog.com/thrifty-treasures/