Make Our Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas Movie Night Hamper

For our Movie Night Munchies hamper, we wanted to play on the Lights, Camera, Action theme.

We also liked the idea of the contents having a homemade retro kind of feel. 

So we used a black, white & red colour palette, with red and white twine, air dry clay decorations and an old school label maker to decorate and label our items.

The wicker basket we used (black rather than traditional brown) was one our parents had kept from a previous Christmas gift.  We’re all about repurposing where possible!

We added strips of vintage film reel to the traditional shredded paper stuffing at the bottom of the hamper and used fairy lights to show off the reel to best effect. 

Finally we added a homemade clapperboard to the open lid of the basket, together with more film reel and lights, to bring the whole hamper together and give a focal point.

Recreate The Look

Whilst of course we probably went a bit overboard because we were creating a Christmas hamper for judging on national television (pinch me moment or what?!?!), it’s quite easy to recreate the various elements at home.

• Find a similar black wicker hamper basket here 
• Vintage film reel can be purchased quite cheaply in places such as eBay here. 2-3m should be more than enough for decorating the hamper.
• We created a homemade clapperboard but they are reasonably inexpensive to purchase, such as this one here. You could add the family name to the board for a personalised touch.
• If using fairy lights, do be sure to use LED ones (and position battery packs carefully) to avoid risk of overheating or fire. 
• Our air dry clay decorations each have fun encouraging messages such as Chomp, Scoff, Cheers, etc. Learn how to make these here.
• Buy an embossing label maker here for the retro labels  (we used Hannah’s 30 year old one which still worked a treat!).  

Of course that’s just one way to present a Movie Night Hamper.  The sky really is the limit though so here’s a few other suggestions.

What To Use As The Hamper

• Any basket or container you can find at home!
• A personalised crate such as this one (comes flat packed).
• Large reusable popcorn tub (great for a smaller selection of treats). 
• Spray paint a cardboard box and use stencils (or write freehand if you can!) to personalise it.
• These DRÖNA boxes from IKEA work really well for larger hampers and are great value for the size. Plus they are a super useful storage gift in their own right!

What To Fill The Bottom With

• Shredded paper and straw are the most common options. Rather than buying purpose made, why not find someone with a shredder and make your own!  Or just use some crumpled paper or tissue paper.
• If you’re adding a blanket to the family hamper gift, you could use this to pad out the bottom.
• Or use film reel, like we did, to emphasise the theme! It’s great fun, unusual and looks brilliant.  We warn you though it does have a mind of its own so will take a little bit of taming!

How To Make The Hamper Look Beautiful

Hampers look best when you can see the contents inside.  Although if your hamper does have a lid, then closing it can be easier for transporting and make it more like a traditional present.

There’s no need to individually wrap the contents which is good news!  Although we would add labels to explain any items that would benefit from a little context. 

Place larger, heavier items towards the back and position other items around these to balance the sizes and weights as evenly as possible. 

The most common way to finish a hamper is to wrap it in cellophane, bringing the corners up to the top above the hamper and gathering them together with ribbon to tie them into position.  Then add a big bow.  You can also get hamper bags (like these from Lakeland) which makes things slightly easier. 

But you can just as easily leave your hamper without a cellophane cover provided all the food products are covered.  Better for the environment and less work / expense for you!  Win win.