And by birch pot, I don’t mean some fancy new designer drug. Although I may be on to something?! No, I mean a clay pot wrapped in birch bark.
This is the, how do you say it, the piece de la resistance for the centerpieces at our wedding reception according to the reception decor mood board. It’s the major piece with the other components (napkins, place cards, candles, etc.) playing second. I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to craft some pots like these. You can buy them in many different places, including several Etsy shops, but I knew I could craft something similar on the cheap. They may not look as nice and fancy as some of the other pots, which cost in the $15-$20 range, but my version is cheap cheap! We’re talking only $1 per pot! Oh, but that’s not factoring in hot glue usage. Make that $1.03 Holla!
So here’s how the craft project worked. My materials included a clay pot purchased on sale from AC Moore for only one dollar…one dolla make you holla! And also some birch bark gathered from my parents yard, a hot glue gun, and a retractable knife.
My original game plan was to hot glue one large sheet of birch bark onto the pot. However, I failed to recognize that if you did that, because of the cone like shape of the pot, the lines in the bark would not remain parallel and even, but would kine of swirl upwards. And the birch bark kind of went wonky-like when it came to the rim of the pot. So scratch that plan. Instead, I chose to tear strips of birch bark and glue the short strips to the pot. So I glued.
And glued away.
Until about fifteen minutes later when I had completely covered the pot with birch bark.
The pot looked pretty good at that point, but me being me, it was time to take it over the top and add some details. I love a good detail. Especially a sentimental one, like carving Colby’s and my initials into the bark in a young in love kind of fashion. Go ahead. Shed a tear. I’ll wait.
I “carved” our initials using a retractable knife. It wasn’t so much of a carving process as it was more of a use-this-knife-kind-of-like-a-pencil procedure. It was really easy to scrape away just enough birch bark to showcase our monograms. Let’s get a little up close and personal shall we?!
There! Now you can see them. I kind of struggled with Colby’s C’s. Carving circularly was a little difficult but I think I got the hang of it by the time I got to the B in my initials. By the time I finish all 20 plus of these pots I should have it down pat!
Have you noticed how the reception decor mood board is coming alive? It’s a regular Frankenstein. Let’s refresh with a little peek at the mood board, which we introduced back here.
The table numbers we finished back here, we purchased seeds and planted the zinnias and billy buttons out in the garden, we have yet to blog about it but the table runner fabric has been purchased and cut, and now we have the birch bark pots. It’s all coming together! Next project…candles. But that kind of gives away next week’s blog post. Sooooo…what I meant to say is…next project could perhaps, possibly be the candle project but it could, in fact, possibly be something else wedding related. Was that vague enough?
Pssst…65 days to go! Woo to the hoo! But who’s counting?!
