Eco - The Festive Rope Basket

A preserved-forest stump with cork coasters, dry fruit and candles, in a rope basket.

The basket is the point of difference here — jute cotton rope, eight inches across, with a lid, and it stays in the house as storage. Inside, a preserved-forest stump in protected glass gives it a centre, and four cork coasters in an MDF holder give it something for the table. Dry fruit, candles and a board game handle the evening.

• The basket outlasts everything in it. Woven jute cotton rope with a fitted lid — it becomes desk storage or a fruit bowl rather than being flattened and thrown.
• Four cork coasters in a holder is the piece that gets daily use. Natural cork over an MDF core, warm in the hand and unaffected by a wet glass.
• Jute and cork are both fast-renewing: jute is an annual crop, and the four cork coasters are cut from bark that regrows over about a decade. Both candles are beeswax rather than paraffin.
• A woven jute-cotton rope basket, 8" across, with a fitted lid. It is the part of the gift that stays in the house — as desk storage, or a fruit bowl.