*** WELCOME BACK ***

Take a good look at what you have so far and see if anything needs more "tweaking".  I'm sure you'll find a few things as I did.

I was not happy with my top and bottom bands, so I went to work making some minor changes; minor changes can make a major difference in your graphic.  Don't settle for something that doesn't look "quite right" to you now or you'll be sorry later.

Here's what I have after making some adjustments:

SAVE

*** BASKET HANDLE ***

2. Place your horizontal guides at 60 and 205.  Place your vertical guides at 45 and 210.

3. Change your background to null and your foreground to the Stained Wood pattern; Scale: 100%, Angle: 90.

4. Click on your Draw Tool; Freehand Line, Width: 6, Antialias and Vector checkecd.

5. Starting just below and inside your top band, draw your basket handle up and around to the other side, using Node Edit, if needed, to get a handle you like (we don't want it to look "perfect"):

SAVE

*** HANDLE KNOBS ***

2. Move the layer behind/below your "handle" layer.

3. Change your foreground to #963838 and your background to the Stained Wood fill; Scale: 100%, Angle: 90.

4. Click on your Preset Shapes Tool, set to rectangle; Antialias and Vector checked; and draw two small rectangles on either side of your basket handles:

5. Click on your Preset Shapes Tool, change to ellipse; Antialias and Vector checked; and draw two small circles as shown below:

SAVE

*** FINAL TOUCHES ***

1. Turn off the visibility for your "handle" layer.

2. Click on your Objects Selector Tool.

3. Here's the trick: click in the upper left portion of your canvas (above and to the left of any vector objects) and while holding your left mouse button down, drag your cursor to the lower right corner to select all your vector objects.  Right click on any vector object and your Vector Properties Box will open:

4. You can now change the properties for all your vector objects at one.

5. I changed my Stroke Color to: #813F3F and my Stroke width to: 3

6. Now I can see where I need to adjust a few slats to get rid of the openings.

(Have you figured out that I write my tutorials as I go?  LOL  Otherwise, I might have created the vector objects this way right off!  That's the beauty of vectors...you can keep making changes.)

SAVE

This is where we will add some "character" to our basket using the Retouch Tool.

7. Right click on your "bottom slats" layer and convert to raster.

8. Float your selections (Selections/Select All; Selections/Float).

9. Click on your Retouch Tool and use the following settings, place some grain lines on your slats angling your strokes to match the slat. Going over the same area darkens it more, so just go for it.

10. Change your Retouch Tool settings to the following:

11. Smudge your image starting in the center and working to the top then from the center toward the bottom, angling your strokes to match the slat:

(If you smudge too much and lose your "grain" look, go back the the Darken RGB settings, add more and smudge again.)

SAVE

12. Repeat these steps for the remaining parts of your basket, reducing the size of your Smudge Tool for the knobs and handle:

13. Click on your handle layer and float your selection.

14. Apply a cutout effect:

Vertical: 1
Horizontal: 1
Opacity: 100
Blur: 2
Color: black

15. Repeat the cutout, changing your Vertical and Horizontal settings to: -1.

16. If you smudged away your dark edge on the top left band, float your selection and use your Retouch Tool with the following settings to darken the edge:

SAVE

*** FILLING YOUR BASKET ***

For the flowers around the handle, place each piece on a separate layer. Use your deformation tool to force the flowers along the path of the handle.  Once you get your flowers in place, move every other piece beneath the handle to give it a "wrapped" effect, as though the flowers are wrapping around the handle.

 Here's my finished basket: