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| Gifts of fresh fruit make wonderful surprises for a hostess, overworked friend or sick neighbor. Here?s how you can create your own fruit basket for much less than you would pay to buy one pre-packed at the grocery store or have one shipped.
 | Even a never-used picnic basket makes a superb container. Before you go to the craft store to buy a container, check around your house to see if you have one in good condition that you aren?t using. (Most of us do!) |
 | Cover the newspaper with a few sheets of festive tissue paper. (Yellow, orange, red, or green look great against fruit.) |
 |  Next, layer in medium and any odd-sized fruit, such as green tipped DOLE Bananas (save yellow bananas for the top layer since they may bruise more easily), papayas, coconuts, and mangoes. Don’t feel you have to use the entire piece of fruit. A papaya sliced in half and covered in plastic wrap is much prettier than the whole fruit. |
 | This firm fruit will help prop up the bigger fruit and cushion the more fragile pieces. |
 | For extra color, add in a few small boxes of DOLE Seedless Raisins or cans of DOLE Pineapple Juice. |
 |  For a super professional touch, wrap your basket in shrink-wrap, which you can purchase at your local craft store, following the packaging instructions.Top off your fruit basket with a big, beautiful bow.
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