With Christmas fast approaching, this dog gift basket is perfect for gift giving! When the goodies are gone, use it as dog toy organizer. It’s a cool project for the furry friends in your life and their human counterparts!

Pottery Barn was selling a similar one with a lid, as you see below. However, we’re going to customize ours!

Materials for Dog Gift Basket

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• Mini dowels
• Glue (white glue and hot glue)
• Wooden beads (ensure hole size will fit the dowels)
• Twine
• Sisal rope
• Yarn
• MDF
• Door pulls (upcycled preferable)
• Charm (optional).
• Permanent marker – black
• Black acrylic paint
• Cellophane wrap (if giving as a gift)

Our gift basket is not only unique, but it’s budget friendly too! Most of the materials for this dog bone basket are either repurposed from items we had on hand (like the scrap of MDF we used for the base and door pulls we made into basket handles) or came from the dollar store. The only thing purchased was the charm (we found ours at Michaels, but you can also order one online).

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Paper Pattern for Dog Gift Basket

Start by drawing out the bone shape on paper. To get a more even shape, fold the paper in half first and draw out half the bone. Cut the pattern out. Tape the paper pattern to a scrap piece of MDF and cut around it with a jigsaw. Round over the top edges of the MDF with sandpaper to smooth them and paint the bone white.

Drill and Dowel

I marked the holes at 1/2″ increments about ½” in from the edge. Hubs drilled out the holes with a drill press so I could insert wooden dowels into the holes. A drill press is a real time saver as each hole can be drilled to the same depth for consistency. The dowels act as the ‘ribs’ of the basket to support the weaving.

Dab one end of each dowel into a bit of glue before inserting them into the holes.

Once all the dowels are glued, I let it dry 24 hours. Then it’s time to start weaving!

Dog Gift Basket Colour

This basket is for our friend’s new dog, which is tan and black, so I combined the dollar store twine with black yarn left over from a knitting project to tie in the colour.

Tie a knot and attach the combined twine and yarn to the middle dowel at one end of the bone.

Weave the Dog Gift Basket

Begin weaving in and out around the entire shape.

When I got back to where I started, I continued in the same direction. Note that if you have an odd number of dowels, you’ll be able to keep going around and around.

However, if you end up with an even amount of dowels, you’ll have to double back and turn around when you reach where you started. Have a look at the plant basket below that I made previously to see how to ‘double back’.  You can see that towards the top, I looped around both dowels just to stabilize and hold the corner together.

Add Charm

Our friend named the new pup Dot, so I added a charm with the letter ‘D’ to the centre of the basket on the front. I opened up the link using two needle nose pliers and then squeezed it closed again around the twine and continued weaving.

Edging

When you’re about an inch from the top of the dowels and you’re back to where you started, bring the end of the twine to the inside of the basket, but don’t cut it off. To finish off the top and create a nice edging, use a thicker piece of rope: fold it in half and loop it around the same dowel.

Crisscross the rope around the dowels all the way around the perimeter of the bone until you’re back at the beginning again.

To end the edging, bring both pieces of rope to the inside of the basket. You’ll use the end of the twine to wrap around the rope and finish it off.

Wrap the twine around the rope ends in a figure eight until it’s the length of the inside wall of the basket.

Knot the twine and add some hot glue to secure the end to the back of the rope to hide it. Cut the end of the twine and the rope, then use hot glue to secure the rope to the inside of the basket so it blends in seamlessly. You can glue down the edge of the rope as well as putting a dollop on the base of the basket to keep the ends from lifting.

Add Beads

To finish off the top of the dowels, I blackened the ends with black marker then glued on some wooden beads.

The holes in the dollar store beads tend to be very inconsistent. I used my thin needle nose pliers to ream out the holes, making sure they would fit onto each dowel before I glued them in place. If you want to be picky about it, you can use a tiny wire brush to clear any debris from the holes before gluing on the beads.

I added a dab of hot glue to the underside of a bead and then threaded it onto the dowel, continuing around until all the dowels were capped.

Secure Handles

In the planter basket I showed you above, I incorporated rope handles into that one so it could be lifted. Since this basket is much larger and heavier, I decided to repurpose some door pulls instead. They were originally saved from our old cabinets and were yellow oak with gold metal.

I painted them to coordinate with the charm (I painted the oak black, then silver leafed and distressed the metal with more black). Hubs gave them a few quick spray coats of varnish in the garage, which we let dry, before I mounted them onto the basket.

Measure to get both handles evenly positioned on each side the basket, ensuring you don’t cover up the charm on the front! You can insert toothpicks where you want the screws placed. I used some washers on the inside of the basket before feeding the screws through the weave of the basket. Use the toothpicks or thin needle nosed pliers to guide the screws through the weave and position the handles on each side. You’ll need a short screwdriver to attach the screws to the handles as the width is pretty narrow in the centre.

As a last step, shave off some of the longer sisal strands with scissors to neaten it up.

Fill With Treats – That’s a Wrap!

The basket is now done and ready to fill!

We added dog treats – and of course a flea and tick collar to protect the pup and keep her safe!

Insert a card, then wrap the whole shebang up with cellophane. Whether you make this dog bone basket for yourself to organize your dog toys in or make it for any dog lover on your gift list, it makes for great storage around the holidays – or any time of year for that matter!

Pin for Later

Pinning is welcome and always appreciated!

More Seasonal Ideas

Here’s a few more seasonal ideas:

BYOB Upcycled Gift Bag

Plastic Clamshell Shrink Art

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