Upcycled Reindeer Basket Made With Thrift Store Finds

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Feature image of a square tapered wicker basket turned into a rustic reindeer basket with the addition of plaid red and green nose and ears and antlers made from an old vintage wall hanging gun rack.

I found this dusty wooden wall-mounted gun rack at the thrift store for a few dollars. I liked the shape of the wood pieces, but had no idea what I could do with them. Read on to see the transformation of this thrifted beauty!

Photo of the before picture of an old 1960s wood, wall mounting gun rack purchased from a thrift store to be disassembled and the sides repurposed to make reindeer ears for a rustic and cute reindeer basket for the holidays.
Thrift store find used in this upcycle project.

Upcycled Reindeer Basket Project

The first step in this project was to take the wooden rack apart. The screws holding it together were old and disintegrating so this took a little work. After that, I gave the pieces a light sanding and applied a darker coat of stain.

Staining the wood side pieces of an old gun rack to darken them to use as antlers on a DIY upcycled reindeer basket.
Antlers

Next, I made a cut-out set of ears and a nose from felt. Plain felt looked a bit boring, so I dug through my supplies and found the perfect plaid fabric scraps leftover from another project. I used fusible web to adhere the fabric to the felt, then stitched the edges by hand.

Closeup of red stitching added to the ears and nose to make an upcycled basket. The base of the nose and ears is brown felt with red and green plaid fabric applied with fusible web then hand stitched along the edge for a more finished look.

I gave this thrift store basket a coat of white chalk paint in a V shape and hot-glued the nose on and the basket lid off. I was a little sad about this because it’s a Longaberger basket, but I see them often, so I felt it was ok to remove the lid for this project.

Assembling the reindeer basket by painting a white v-shape for the face before gluing the nose on.
Using hot glue to glue the felt nose to an upcycle reindeer basket.

Next, I attached the ears with a staple gun by pinching them in the middle and stapling the two sides to the inside of the basket.

Photo shows how the ears were attached to the basket. Pinched in the middle and two staples to the sides attaching the ear to the inside of the reindeer basket.

Then I secured the antlers to the inside of the basket with zip ties. I later found brown zip ties that matched much better and replaced the white ones shown here.

Closeup photo showing how the wood antlers were attached to the inside of a wicker basket with zip ties to upcycle the basket into a reindeer basket for the holidays.

To finish, I cut eyelashes out of felt with my Cricut Maker 3. Here are a couple more photos of my finished basket.

Feature image of a square tapered wicker basket turned into a rustic reindeer basket with the addition of plaid red and green nose and ears and antlers made from an old vintage wall hanging gun rack. The basket is show here filled with a branch with small pine cones and branches of pussy willows.
Square feature image of a square tapered wicker basket turned into a rustic reindeer basket with the addition of plaid red and green nose and ears and antlers made from an old vintage wall hanging gun rack. The basket is show here filled with a branch with small pine cones and branches of pussy willows hanging next to an entry way door on a white shiplap wall.
Star divider used has two hand drawn lines with a star in the center, used as a content break and signals new or different content below. This doodle style illustration is in a medium charcoal gray.

– MORE TO EXPLORE –

Wood Snowflake Decoration + Snowman Hat Craft + No Sew Appliqué Ideas

Horizontal feature image of a finished wood snowflake decoration sitting on a chair on top of a basket of birch logs and pinecones with a clear glass vase of willows on the side.
Square photo of a finished DIY snowman hat sitting next to a stack of "Let It Snow" books.
Photo of two white pillows with two different snowflake appliqued onto them. One has a red plaid snowflake and the other has a gray and black buffalo check snowflake.
Horizontal feature image of a finished wood snowflake decoration sitting on a chair on top of a basket of birch logs and pinecones with a clear glass vase of willows on the side.
Wood Snowflake Decoration
Square photo of a finished DIY snowman hat sitting next to a stack of "Let It Snow" books.
Snowman Hat Craft
Photo of two white pillows with two different snowflake appliqued onto them. One has a red plaid snowflake and the other has a gray and black buffalo check snowflake.
No Sew Appliqué Ideas

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