Non-Cheesy Flower Girl Basket

I was determined not to have a cheesy or tacky looking flower girl basket for our flower girl M, who is my god-daughter. She is spunky and I wanted her to have a cool-looking basket. One that maybe she might want to keep and use again for something, like maybe storing hair bows? AND I was also determined to find a cheap way to create this non-tacky cute container from which to dispense flower petals down the aisle.

Thanks (again) to Dollarama, I achieved both. I found the brown wood basket a week before the wedding and bought the black paint and sponge brushes at the Dollarama too. The basket was $1.25 and the brushes and bottle of paint were a $1 each.

Before:

I painted the basket and searched around the apartment to find the white ribbon that had tied a going-away gift I had received in Chicago before moving. I knew I had saved it, thinking: "Hmmm...I bet I could use this later for something with the wedding." And so it became part of the flower girl basket! :)

For the wedding, we filled the basket with red silk rose petals my mom got with a half-price coupon at a craft store- maybe $3 for a big box of them? So, all said and done, it was about $7, if I include the cost of the supplies and the big over half-full box of fabric rose petals that are re-useable for other projects.

After: