Knick-knack Dish

For a long time now, my sister-in-law has been asking me to make a waste paper basket for her office, from paper reeds – either by paper weaving or using paper coils. While I am yet to get around to making it, as a first step, I tried out this little basket.

In theory, it is pretty easy to make these dishes but in reality, it is quite a lot of work. And rolling those reeds and making coils from them becomes painful on your fingers too. But I must say, I absolutely love this dish, so I might give it another go and make another dish for myself.

How I did it:

1. Make a whole bunch of paper reeds. I had made about 150 reeds to start off. And in the end, I needs to make some more!! I had used A4 size magazine paper. I cut the paper in half, lengthwise and used it. So 1 sheet gave me 2 reeds.

2. For the base, start off coiling one reed. When you reach the end, glue another reed into the opening. Continue adding reeds till you have the desired size of disk. Keep aside.

3. Now, for the coils, I had made them in 3 sizes. The biggest ones were about 1.5 inches in diameter. For this, I used 2 reeds to get the desired size. The second one was about a inch in diameter, made from a single reed. I coiled it around a pencil, so that I got a circular hole rather than a pinpoint. The last one was about half an inch in diameter. I cut the A4 into 4 rectangles – once vertically and once horizontally. This I used for the final row at the top. Oh, I had used a total of 16 coils in each row, so a total of 43 coils.

4. Once all the coils are done, it is just a matter of gluing them to the circular disc base. Hot glue/quick drying glue is the best for this. I had alternated a large (1.5 inch) coil with the smaller (1 inch) coil.

5. The second row was the same – small coil followed by the bigger one, in between the coils of the first row.

6. For a completed look, I added the final row of coils, the 0.5 inch ones.

7. Finally, once everything is dried, I painted the bowl with a mixture of glue and water. This makes the bowl really stiff and fills all the gaps. So if any of your coils are not tight enough, this coat will ensure it doesn’t come undone. Also there is a shine added to the bowl which is very appealing.

Model Details:

Model: Paper Knick-knack Dish

Origin: Traditional

Difficulty Level: Low Intermediate

Model Size: ~6 inches in diameter

Tutorial for making paper reeds: Youtube