The bark from the paper birch tree is very strong and the wood in the middle tends to rot long before the outside - leaving these beautiful birch bark tubes - with all kinds of character, roughness, texture, knots, and curls. I like it alot and decided to make some simple garland with it.Is this the most chic, hip and cool project? Nope. It's just fun to play with things in nature... (also if you have kids they love stringing things together like this!) I myself, just have an inner kid.
The easiest way to string the pieces is to use a safety pin on the end.... I used soy yarn as a string.For the pieces that were not perfect cylinders, i used a hole puncher to punch a hole to string through and it worked perfect!
The two end pieces on both the right and left I punched holes in to tie a knot so the garland can stay in place.
YAY! This is a gift for someone and I can't wait to give it. Handmade gifts, even weird hippy-fied nature ones are the best. :)
Xoxoxoxo
You've hit upon a craft that weaves thru Africa (lived in Kenya for three years). Besides jewelry, you can pound bark into a type of placemat. Bought some in Uganda. Embroidery design on top. Also, saw at the Smithsoneon paper jewelry from Uganda...roll tightly (very small pieces of paper), connect, make necklace, earrings. Saw a vase the other day with these outside. Oh, color of paper background must be consistent...real design comes when rolled paper shows color of interior. Really fun! I mentioned crayfish/crawfish cause in a blog I used crayfish (cause I wasn't sure if crawfish traveled everywhere). LA folks screamed Crawfish. Shoulda put one in parenthesis. I've always said crawfish. I've been to Raceland many times. Great food in Raceland! And people too!!
ReplyDeleteHey Kittie!
ReplyDeleteThat is really cool - and interesting, i just had a friend ask me last week for some paper birch bark to embroider on, i had no idea it was a traditional craft! I will have to look up how they pound the bark together... I would really like to learn alot more nature related crafts, especially ones passed down for generations that work.
Do you have any links you like that share about it?
PS_ i knew ya said crawfish, cause everyone from LA says it that way ;)