American Outdoor Gift Basket

Since our theme was "American Outdoor" I wanted to make a gift basket that had a very American feel to it. I started by taking a stainless steel garbage pail and spray painted it red, white and blue. To get the stripes nice and straight, I wrapped thick masking tape around the pale to section off the colors and then later removed the tape for a clean finish.

I then took ½ a yard of red cotton bandana print material and sewed a bag for the homemade gift items. I thought the cowboy bandana fabric would be a nice compliment to the red, white and blue theme. I wanted to fill the gift pail with items that I felt were very American, so I included my homemade cornbread mix, a three bean chili mix and a dry barbeque rub. Each of the items were wrapped in cellophane party favor bags which were labeled with instructions and tied with ribbon. I think it's important when putting together a gift basket of any kind that it is something that you yourself would like to receive. I also think that a gift basket should be useful and practical. The pail could be used later as a garbage can, a sand pail at the beach or a decorative vase to place flowers in. The bandana tote could be used again. If the food items were scaled for four people, this would be a perfect meal to share with family or friends.