How To Repair A Wicker Basket

Wicker baskets are a delightful decoration for your home decor and can make quite a dramatic statement about your taste. Enjoy your collection for many years and extend the useful life of your baskets past post-obit these uncomplicated how-to care for wicker basket tips and hints.

How-to Intendance for Your Basket Collection–Using these 12 Hot Tips!

©The Wicker Woman/Cathryn Peters

Continue Baskets out of Sunlight and Away from Heat Sources

Keep all baskets abroad from heat sources such as fireplaces, wood stoves, gas stoves, heat registers, radiators, and/or sunlight. The intense heat and ultraviolet rays of the sun may cause fading and bleaching in addition to drying the fibers out prematurely, making them brittle.

Keep Baskets Away from Grease

Go along baskets away from the kitchen stove, wood burning stove, or fireplace surface area where they might become muddy with soot, smoke, and grease, making them difficult to intendance for and make clean.

Maintain Intended Apply for Baskets

Don't cross contaminate your baskets used for nutrient storage and baskets used to concord potpourri, perfume, oils, or soaps. Keep baskets used for food divide from those used for other purposes.

For baskets that hold food, be certain to line them with a plastic liner to protect the baskets. Or line with a material napkin or paper towel to absorb any grease or oil that might be in the food.

Handle Baskets with Intendance

It'due south best to handle your baskets with clean easily; free of lotion, oil or grease of whatsoever kind. Body oils can damage the baskets every bit can high humidity, by causing stains, mold, and mildew.

As well pick upwards baskets past supporting the bottom, especially if it has any contents inside and wear latex or cotton gloves when you handle them.

Cleaning Your Baskets

A feather duster or a clean, dry natural bristle paintbrush is the best manner to remove dust from a basket. Or utilise the upholstery zipper of your vacuum cleaner with a nylon stocking placed over the end.

For deep cleaning, dampen a white 100% cotton cloth (cotton baby diapers work well), very slightly with clean cold water and blot gently; then let basket air dry completely.

Soaking a basket in h2o or giving it a thorough "shower" tin result in swelling of the fibers, and tin contribute to colour fading and loss of patina (a valuable asset for antique collectors).

Rotate Your Basket Collection–Keep it Circulating

Movement your drove of baskets around your room and house and then that each basket gets a change in humidity and heat, unlike exposure to sunlight or bogus light, and irresolute exposure to objects they might come up in contact with, which might be deteriorating factors.

Maintain Abiding Humidity and Temperature Levels

Nosotros all know how temperatures and humidity can fluctuate in our homes, merely it can be very detrimental to your basketry collection.

The employ of air-conditioners and dehumidifiers for hot, humid atmospheric condition discourages mold and mildew growth and insect activity. Mold and mildew are very difficult to remove properly and tin severely damage your handbasket's condition, quality and value.

Hang or Mount Baskets Properly

If your basket is to be hung on the wall, utilise wall hangers advisable to the weight of the basket and its embellishments. Incorrect mounting devices may misconstrue your basket in an undesirable way.

Keep Baskets Out of Harms Mode

Fragile baskets should exist kept up loftier, away from pets and young children where they could easily get bumped or cleaved.

Antler baskets and ones made with sharp projections can injure children too, so go on them on a level surface, abroad from curious children and pets.

Displaying your baskets in glass or acrylic cases or domes is a good protective mensurate, and also keeps grit away.

Packing and Shipping Your Baskets

First of all, brand sure the boxes and wrapping materials are clean and complimentary of rodents or insects. Double boxing of the basket is the best and safest way to pack a basket.

Make sure the basket is completely dry out and if stained, the stain is dry out and smoke free. As an added protection again loss during aircraft, always include the name, accost and telephone number of the basketmaker or possessor and the recipient on a 3 ten five card.

Place the card within the basket and some other card at the meridian of the packing materials before sealing each box to guarantee correct delivery.

Type the accost data on a packing characterization or impress the information legibly in block messages, and attach to exterior acme of the box. It's a adept idea to pack baskets in boxes within another box for best stability and protection.

Begin past carefully wrapping the basket in several layers of archival tissue newspaper and bubble wrap, placed inside a plastic bag.

Then place the wrapped basket in the center of a new cardboard aircraft box, allowing at least four inches in every direction to identify bubble wrap, Styrofoam peanuts (prepacked in individual plastic bags), paper or other packing materials.

Place this box in a second box that is at least iv inches larger in each direction, and fill up again with packing materials.

To assure ease of shipping, brand certain at that place are no other writings, advertizement or bar codes on the box, other than your shipping label, and that it is legible.

Do Not use a liquor box with writing on the outside, as the Postal service Role will pass up information technology immediately.

Long Term Handbasket Storage

For best results, follow the directions to a higher place and don't permit heavy objects to residue on meridian of the storage boxes.

Damage well-nigh often occurs when baskets are stored for extended periods of fourth dimension in attics, basements, or garages, where heavy objects might be placed on the boxes and the temperature fluctuates dramatically.

The boxed baskets should exist kept in a humidity and temperature controlled area. If y'all are no longer using and enjoying your basket collection you might consider sharing it with others.

Yous could sell the collection, exhibit it through a museum or gallery or donate your baskets individually to deserving friends, family unit or even a basket guild, mayhap.

Repairing Damaged Baskets

Basketry repair and restoration is extremely difficult, because of the brittle nature of the basket, material matching problem (sometimes it'south no longer available), and colour matching difficulties, to say nothing of destroying antiquarian value if repaired badly.

If your handbasket has been damaged in some way, minimize farther harm past taking it out of circulation, don't use information technology and keep it in a safe identify until you tin locate a handbasket repair expert or conservator.

Don't use any kind of masking record, duct tape or whatever sort of agglutinative equally a stop-gap mensurate, because that may add to more than cleaved pieces during the removal process.

At that place are some Chair Caning and Wicker restoration businesses that also repair baskets, so check on my National Piece of furniture Repair Directory™ in both categories to come across if you lot tin locate a pro to help with your basket repairs.

Cheers and so much for helping to support this resource and information site by donating generously!

Source: https://www.wickerwoman.com/articles/basket-care