Birch Bark Baskets

During an unusually chilly summer evening up north, I used some of the harvested bark and left over spruce roots from the canoe build to make a few simple baskets, including some pieces of winter bark with crude etching. Both of these are simple foldup designs with a contrasting ring of bark as a skirt aroung the mouth made just like the mini-basket for the canoe but with all spruce root sewing. The bark was soaked in hot water and worked wet so as to minimize splitting. Etching out the winter bark was more challenging that I had thought so I ended up with pretty crude geometric lines on one basket and left the other "au natural". I've got even more respect for artists who can intricately shape patterns in this working medium.


Two different baskets
Anyway, we have some fake maple leaf ornaments at the cottage that were sitting in a utlitarian stainless steel "vase" (actually the cottage unused ice bucket...my parents' notion of artistic accent) so I decided to ditch the cold steel and place the ornaments in a basket on a shelf by the stairs, but eventually moved them to dresser counter in the guest room.


More rustic decoration for the cottage

I've actually since ordered Celebrating Birch: The Lore, Art, and Craft of an Ancient Tree from Amazon. Looks to be a fantastic book on the subject including some photo tutorials on making other bark crafts