my laundry basket mishap

Well I really fudged this one up!! All around, {as my children would say} epic fail. :0

I have a canvas laundry basket that I picked up from Home Goods for $20. I love{d} it. Gray, cute arrow... yah, there it is below.

Well a few months after I got it, I noticed there was mold at the bottom... someone tossed something damp it there and well - I didn't have the heart to take pictures of the black dots of mold that started to sprout. So I decided to do two things. 1. I needed to bleach it! 2. I needed to make a vinyl {waterproof} basket liner to keep that from happening again.

I pick up some adorable black and white dot vinyl material. Did my measurements, cut my fabric. Pulled out the sewing machine and all was good in the world. In the midst of my sewing I went ahead and took diluted bleach water to the bottom of my beloved laundry basket. I soaked the moldy spots and bit and did some scrubbing. Then I let it sit there to dry, and went back to my sewing.

Finished up all the sewing and excitingly go back to my laundry room to put that new little contraption in my hopefully now free of mold basket. Well, it was free of mold all right. Crystal clean with no signs of mold... however epic fail 1. consists of me over saturating my basket with my bleach water. I ended up with a basket that had discoloration all around the bottom on the "outside" of my basket. Not only was there discoloration from just getting wet, but also faded areas where the bleach affected it as well. I ruined my beloved laundry basket :(

I decided to slip my just made liner in there anyway to see how it come out... well epic fail 2. it fit fine going in, and snuggly fit at the bottom, but when I attempted to wrap it around the rim of the basket it was a no go! Evidently, since the top of my basket has a metal rim under the material, it made so my liner wasn't large enough to wrap around it. Like not even close! I even removed the seam to see exactly how far off I was... as you can see - it was inches!

I gave up! Threw away my ruined laundry basket, I couldn't bare sight of my failure. If I hadn't ruined my basket with bleach I could have fixed and adjusted the liner I'm sure. What do I do with the liner now? I don't know... I'm thinking of up cycling {yes, up cycling... since it's no longer just fabric} it into placemats.

As you can see, not all diy projects work out. This one, for me, was a no go! Now I'm off to go buy a new laundry basket :0 Happy Saturday!!