Goodwill Basket Purse Redo

So I took my mother to her local Goodwill store yesterday so that we could drop off some items and, of course, pick up more items. As I was perusing the basket section, I saw this sweet little basket purse that was desperately in need of some love. For $0.50 I had to take it home and at least try to fix it up a little.

Here's some before pics of the sad little purse.






It's difficult to see, but the elastic that was holding the basket together was pretty much shot. The plastic flower on top was one of the first things that had to go. I replaced the worn out elastic with some heavy gauge crochet thread. I wanted to add some kind of a liner to it, and I was originally going to use the cute floral fabric shown in the photos, but I saw that my mom had cut some adorable blue plaid short sleeves off of a shirt of hers and I thought that would be perfect as a liner. It was also a lot less work since all I needed to do was to stitch up the cut opening of the sleeve. The remaining opening was already hemmed and ready to be used. When I finished stitching up the cut opening of the blue material, I placed it in the basket and stitched it in place around the basket opening. I also added two small stitched through the bottom of the lining, just to secure it to the bottom of the basket. I also used some of the blue thread that I used to stitch the bottom of the lining fabric to weave around the little loop that goes around the button.

  

I think it turned out to be a pretty cute little purse. It fits my wallet, keys, and my phone, which sometimes is all I really need.

For $0.50, some thread, a recycled shirt sleeve and a little time, I think it's a pretty good investment.