A tisket, a tasket... Handmade birch bark baskets!

Before I attempted my birch bark baskets, I already had some experience in basketry.  As cliche as it sounds, basket weaving is actually something I enjoy!  The hardest part about it is finding supplies locally, rather than having to order reed sight unseen from the internet.

Needless to say, working with my harvested birch bark has been such a treat!  Once it gets wet (which is required considering you have to clean the forest gunk off of it), it really functions just like construction paper.  Take away the weaving part, and you can actually end up with a basket pretty quickly!  I sewed the first one, but went to hot glue for the next two.  Might be a little less 'natural' but it avoided the risk of tearing at the stitches.

I love how you naturally get two colors to use: the lighter shade is the outside of the bark, while the dark brown is the inside.

They looked pretty good initially, but I really thought they needed a little something extra.  I headed off to Joann's and found myself some moss to use as an accent.  I think I've found another hobby, and a cheap one at that!

By the way, I hit 5000 page views yesterday!  Woohoo!