We always get these colorful coupons, and weekly ads from local groceries in our mail, that usually endup in trash after we glance through it. My kids are obsessed with those pictures, and sometime collect those coupons for their pretend play of marketplace...

So the spring is here, and we cleaned their shelves and I got these bunch of neatly cut coupons, which I thought of using to make paper strips and try on paper weaving a basket. I ended up with a really fancier swan...

Here is how to make one for yourself... I swear you would like to have one on display.. or you can use it to put small items like clips, head bands or pins etc., so you know where to look for it when you need one...

Step 1: Preparing the Paper Strips

So I will start from scrap. You will need few newspapers, scissors and glue for making this.

Cut the newspapers to equally sized rectangles like the one shown in the figure. Length of the paper = length of the strip. and the width of the paper will end in thickness of the strip as we roll it. So adjust the width of the paper to the thickness you want.

Mine was precut coupons, so I dont bothered to cut them.

To roll the paper, you will need something like round dowel stick, but really thin. I used the plastic stick from a lollipop.

So put the stick in one corner of the paper and start rolling around the stick using the fingers, as tight as you can. roll the whole paper , so it becomes stick like. When the paper ends, dab little glue on the end and stick the end as you roll. Repeat this with all the paper you have. You will need a lot of them to weave.

And before you start to weave, wrap them in a damp cloth for sometime say 15 mins, so it is soft enough for weaving.

Step 2: Weaving the Bowl

Take the four strips, place like a '+'.

Take a new strip, bend it in half and place it in one of the sides, wrap around by bending the new strip to the adjacent side as shown in figure 3.

Repeat that for all the four sides. Now the + shape will be firm and tight. You can wrap like this twice.

Step 3:

Now, repeat the same process, but separate the twin strips in + to single, so this forms a circle when done on all the sides.

Now add a new strip to the circle in any place by inserting it to the woven part, and continue wraping around one more time, so this new strip also gets added into the circle pattern.

This new strip helps in weaving 'up one down one' pattern.

You can form a bowl by simple wrapping around the warp in the circle pattern now, or switch to 'up one down one' pattern when the wrapping strips end. Weave to the height of the bowl you want.

Step 4: Forming the Swan Shape

Now that the bowl shape is ready, bend the ends of the warp(circle base strips) into the weaved bowl leaving only four of them standing out.

To form the neck of the swan, take the left most warp strip, and start weaving it into the other three like in figure 4. When the height of the neck is reached, wrap the strip around all like a knot shown in figure 5.

Now to form the head, make a small circle by wrapping one of the strips above the knot using index finger as guide. Now use second strip to form a beak shape adjacent to the head.

There will be one last strip remaining, use this to wrap around the beak and head shape. Wrap till the hole and glue the end into the hole so it form eye shape.

The result would be like the last figure of this step.