THE CAVENDER DIARY

I’ve always loved these vintage Navajo wedding baskets.

I wrote about the symbolism in them last year. It’s very beautiful if you care to read about it here.

OK, the prices are through the roof for an authentic, vintage one.

Of course, I thought, “I can do that”…..Well, not weave one……YET.

But I can certainly age one.

I started with a couple of coil baskets from import stores. I pick them up all the time for about 5 to 15 dollars. I found a few online places that have the same baskets El Paso Imports Co and El Paso Saddle Blanket . Just as cheap. I’m guessing that El Paso Texas is the place to buy cheap baskets.

I used 2 different colored stains. Gunstock (how could I not use a color called Gunstock?) and Jacobean (we used it on the wood headboard wall in the master bedroom). The first is light and the second is dark, y’all can use what ever combo you have in your garage too.

With rubber gloves and a clean rag, I start by giving the whole basket a coat of Gunstock stain being sure to rub deep into the groves.

these new baskets are extremely dry and soak up the stain in no time.

They already look better.

All the “cream” color is now a warm “khaki”.

After the first stain is dry – I waited about 5 hours…so they were mostly dry – I gave a light skimming of the darker Jacobean stain.

I really just skimmed the surface, making some areas a little darker, and leaving the crevices light.

This will create some highs and lows in the basket color and make it look like it was genuinely used.

Here are my finished baskets with the dark smudged areas. I made the edges just slightly darker than the surfaces.

Now, I really let them dry this time…a couple of days….before using them.

Then we can “pepper” them back into our house where they are useful.

Full of bandanas in the bedroom…

…holding the remotes in the den…..

…..and some aloe in the breakfast room.

Yepp, we were thinking the same thing,

Way, More, Much, Better.