"The white birch behind my window covered with snow, like silver ..." True, beautiful poetry was written by Sergei Esenin about the Russian birch tree? But birches grow not only in Russia, but also in many places of the globe and are famous not only for their beauty, but also for many other qualities. For example, its leaves and kidneys help with liver diseases. Wood is an excellent material for making furniture. And what elegant and useful products are obtained from the birch bark bark, just a sight for life! Well, such ornaments from birch bark, like beads, pendants, vases and much more, please us even today. Let's learn and we can make something out of this simple, but attractive material.
How to collect and process birch bark?
But before you start making products from birch bark, you need to collect it and process it correctly. Birch bark can be collected all year round, but it is best to do this from early spring to early summer. At this time, it lags behind the trunk easily and is the most malleable.
Remove birch bark only from felled or fallen storm trees with a thickness of 20 cm in diameter and larger. To remove the bark from the birch, an incision is made from the top down from the place of the cut, trying not to damage the wood. Then the edge of the birch bark is picked up by the point of the knife and carefully removed with hands. This method is called sheet. There is also a tape method, in this case the bark is removed by a narrow band in a spiral, making sure that it does not break off.
After harvesting birch bark must be processed and sorted. The processing of birch bark includes cleaning it from dirt, moss, sand, foreign growths and surface debris. And also the subsequent separation of the birch bark into the external ornamental and internal waste layer.
From the outer layer, birch bark cans, boxes, baskets, beads, saltcellars and other utensils are made. Well, the inner layer is either thrown away or used for souvenir crafts. And now let's see how to make things from birch bark.
Ornaments from birch bark: pendant and earrings
An interesting product from birch bark can be a pendant and earrings. For the pendant, we need 2 birch-bark ovals 5 cm high and 3 cm wide, a beautiful pebble, decorative braid, pvc adhesive and scissors. For earrings - wire, birch bark tape and glue. Let's start with the pendant.
From the birch bark sheet cut out 2 identical ovals and glue them with the wrong sides. When the glue dries, we process the ends of the oval with a nest, and in the middle of one of the sides we glue a pebble. After 4 hours, when the pebble is permanently glued, holes are punched along the perimeter of the oval at a distance of 1 cm from the edge and stretch the braid. It will decorate the edge of the pendant, and will also perform the function of the chain. Tie her ends to the desired length - and everything, our pendant is ready.
Earrings are made much easier. Take a flexible wire 10 cm long and bend the buckle from it. From the birch bark ribbon cut 10 cm and give a piece of the shape of an isosceles triangle. On the one hand, grease it with glue and gently screw it onto the bottom of the buckle in the form of a roller starting from the wide end. Do the same with other wire and a strip of birch bark. All the earrings are ready, let them dry, and you can brag to your girlfriends.
Beads from birch bark
From birch bark you can also make interesting beads. The technology of their manufacture is very similar to the method of making earrings. Take a string of the right length, a sheet of birch bark, a glue of the pva and a buckle for beads, they are fully sold in the departments of jewelry.
From the birch bark cut the strips, as for earrings, but make them of different lengths. Of the longer strips, larger beads will be obtained, which will go to the middle. And from the shorter ones, the smaller ones fit at the edges. By the way, the threads of your beads can be
Making a vase from birch bark
But how to make a vase from birch bark. Take a birch-bark rectangle with an area of 22 by 30 cm and lay it with a long side. Points divide the sheet into 4 equal parts and make in these places cuts of 2 cm. Then bend the cut sections inward, and fold the entire sheet into a tube and glue along the edges. From dense cardboard or other piece of birch bark cut out a circle that will be a bit larger than the hole of the tube, this is a stand. Glue to it the bent edges of your vase, and when it dries, decorate it to your liking. Is not it beautiful? And what would you make of birch bark?