I trimmed a good piece of bark with scissors.
I scored the bark with a nut pick, using a straight edge.
Then I folded all the score marks, pulling the corners out.
I poked holes in the corners with a pin.
I stuck a bit of toothpick into the holes to hold the container together. This doesn't look very neat for a container of this scale, but American Indians held their birchbark containers together using either a splinter of wood or sewing. A large container made like this could be constructed by a hunter in a few minutes, and used to cook soup, as long as the flames of the fire didn't flicker above the level of the soup. My container has a tiny knot hole in it, so it leaks!
I learned how to make a birchbark trail kettle from C. Keith Wilbur, M.D.'s book Indian Handcrafts.
If you would like to learn how to make a model of a birch bark container that you can use to hold liquids, scroll down to the next posting.
15 comments:
These is so lovely. I will be making some for our nature table. Thank you for posting this.
Fabulous! I am amazed with all your amazing creations!!
My husband was recently teaching a group of young people at our homeschooling resource center about Native American culture. They did storytelling, harvested and processed acorns to make acorn griddle cakes, and played some native american games. This is a great activity!
Beth you are amazing! You are so creative! I was reading in my natural dye book tonight and discovered that birch bark makes a really pretty pink dye and you don't have to use a mordant to get the color to set.
I will show my boys this post in the morning.....they always love visiting here!
love, sara
Wonderful idea!! Thank you so much for sharing and for explaining how to do it so well. I will have to show this post to my son. We are in the midst of reading a great adventure book where a young boy runs away to live in the mountains for many months surviving on what he finds there so this project is so fitting with it.
~Emily xox
I love this! Thank you for sharing!
Wonderful and so beautiful! If I find some birch bark on the ground, I'll try one of these for sure.
lisa
Hello Beth
I have been lost in knitting lately and promised myself a morning of blog reading. I have missed popping by but I am sure you know that this time of year can be quite busy for us crafters. Beth you astound me with your constant ideas of making things. I think I need to send my dear boy over to your house for a day fun...
I hope you are well Beth and that you are getting the Christmas orders flowing in..
Happy weekend to you Beth
Warm regards
Suzanne
Such a lovely post Beth, my son would love this, you are very creative :)
Happy weekend :)
Warmly
Linda
So wonderful. And I love the gnome hat!
How fun. This would be so cool to do.
Excellent! I would love to try this. Many thanks, I love your tutorials!
I found your post from The Magic Onions' Friday Nature Table. What a great project! I have no idea where any birch trees are near us, but if I find any, I would love to try out this project.
Oh, and your little one's mushroom gnome cap is ADORABLE - did you make it?
Beautiful! We collect birch bark on fallen trees throughout the summer and use it as our paper source for starting our wood stove during the winter. I love the ideas that you share Beth, there is so much beauty in this process!
this is wonderful to see. I just bought a cord of birch for winter. I have been looking at the bark you are planting idea in me. i feel sad for the loose bits I have already burned.
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