How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?

For my birch bark challenge, I decided to make a heart pendant. I combined a couple ideas I found on Pinterest to come up with my design. The finished product looks like this:

Here's how I made it. I started by tracing half of a heart shape onto some light cardboard. I used a stamp for the shape, and an old cereal box for the lightweight cardboard.

I then flipped the stamp over to trace the same half heart, creating a teardrop shape. I did this process twice so I had two teardrop shapes. Then cut them out.

Next I placed the teardrops on top of each other with a slight overlap to recreate the heart shape. I drew a reference line along the left side of the top teardrop onto the bottom teardrop where they met. Then I drew dots onto each side of the intersecting line to mark the lacing hole placement.

 
Next I placed the teardrops onto the back of my clean bark, traced the shapes and cut them out. The birch bark is very pliable and easy to cut with regular scissors.

Using a hole punch with a very small bit, I punched holes in the cardboard pattern. I then placed the cardboard shape on top of the birch bark shape, and using a pencil, transferred the hole placement onto the birch bark. I then punched the lacing holes into the bark.

Because the bark overlaps, a second set of lacing holes needed to be punched in the bottom teardrop. So I marked the placement line onto the bark, aligned the teardrops to recreate the heart, and marked the second line of lacing holes onto the bottom teardrop, using the top teardrop for placement.

After punching the holes, the teardrops now looked like this:

Next I turned to making the beaded tassel. Using a long piece gold beading wire, I threaded five small pearl beads. Then I added a larger pearl. I doubled the wire and re-threaded it through the small beads. I repeated this process twice more, then aligned the three sets to form the fringe.

 I gave the wires a twist to hold the fringe in place. Then I threaded the the doubled wire through another large bead to form the head of the tassel.

Using that same doubled wire, I began threading the teardrops together. After the first couple stitches, I couched the tail wire behind the stitches as I continued threading the heart together. I put the wire through each set of holes twice. I had to move the teardrops around a bit as I stitched to align the top and bottom holes on the right side of the heart.

Once the teardrops were laces together, I used the newly formed heart shape to trace another heart onto the back of birch bark (wrong sides together). This way the back of the fob will align correctly with the front of the fob. I then cut the heart shape from the bark.

I next used the pencil to mark the lacing holes around the edge of the front of the fob, and punched the holes. With wrong sides of the bark together, I marked the placement of the lacing holes onto the wrong side of the back of the heart. I punched the holes. Then using the wire, I laced the front of the heart to the back, again lacing the wire through each set of holes twice.

To make the fob's hanger, I looped the wire (over a pencil) from one top hole to the other several times. I then wrapped the wire around and around this loop until it was well covered. I then snipped the wire close to the birch bark and tucked the end in between the bark pieces.

 Here's the back side of the completed fob.

And here's the front of the fob:

I temporarily attached the fob to my sweater as a zipper pull. It can be used this way, or as a fob for a key chain, or as a pendant for a necklace. 

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Out with the Old, In with the Bold

I'm always wishing for more cute accessories that look unique and fun -- just like me!

So when looking on Etsy for inspiration for this project, I came across these beautiful earrings:

Nice! Those are interesting. I'd love to make them, but...
I have a policy to keep my wardrobe under control: if I buy something new, I need to get rid of something I don't wear anymore.

Thankfully, I had an old pair of dangle earrings that I never wear. Hey-- if I'm going to get rid of these earrings, why not recycle the earring backs into my new earrings?

Witness the awesome outcome:

Ooooh. How do they look in practice?

Solid! I call this a challenge well-completed.

Star Light, Star Bright...

...Birch Star I See Tonight


So, it comes up in conversation that today is the last day of February, and the last day of our birch bark challenge. I've been so busy this month, I hadn't even thought about it. But since I missed last month's challenge, I wanted to try to do this one.

I jumped on the computer to see what I can come up with. I kept thinking, I wanted to do something practical, something I could actually use for some purpose later. I scanned the pintrest boards. Lots of candle holders... but I already have those from the tin can challenge. Finally, I just told myself, this isn't supposed to be a practical project, it's supposed to be fun! 

So I go locate my bark, to see what I have to work with. It's not white. I wasn't expecting that. But it has some neat colors, and interesting texture, and is warped in a wavy form. I decided I really wanted to do something that would preserve as much of this uniqueness as I could.

Thus, in the course of less than an hour, and with the help of some scissors, hot glue, and string, my star was born!

Birch Bark Challenge

Back in April 2012, Dale and I took a trip to Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada to celebrate our wedding anniversary. While there, we took a little hike on Zuckerman's Island along the Columbia River. We hunted a geocache, and enjoyed examining the unusual little Russian Orthodox Chapel that was built on the island back in 1935.

All along the trails among the evergreens were stands of birch trees. Many were fallen and many more had piles of white birch bark at their roots. Since we don't have a lot of birch in my neighborhood, I scavenged some of the bark knowing that it can be used in craft projects. My daughters and I divided up the birch bark later that year, but we haven't gotten around to presenting this challenge until now.

February's AuralArtists challenge is to use the birch bark to make any kind of craft project you wish. I have a Pinterest board where I've started to gather ideas on how the bark might be used. I think I may make a heart-shaped key fob or zipper pull. Or maybe I'll use my bark to make a Valentine gift. Once I begin, we'll see where the muse takes me.

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