I am so excited to share this DIY with you! It comes from a loyal FiftyFlowers customer, Lori Dyer, who has now done several weddings for family and friends using wholesale flowers from FiftyFlowers. Check out this Beautiful Beach Wedding or this Awesome Superhero Wedding to see some of her work! Keep in mind, this was just a Mom who thought it would be a fun experience to do her daughter’s wedding flowers (and her Mom, Bride’s Grandma, had flower experience, as she did Lori’s wedding flowers back in 1982!). And now Lori’s playing and creating with flowers all over the place! She has two weddings, in two completely different states across the country, both for family, in the next two weeks! Yes, she may be a lil crazy, but at least she has FiftyFlowers to send her beautiful flowers, right?! 🙂 hehe!
Anyways, back to the DIY project…So, just a few weeks ago, I got an amazing gift in the mail! 5 gorgeous “vases”, in different sizes, that Lori had made herself! I love em and now I get to share the DIY with you!! Let’s dive in…
DIY: Birch Bark Can Vases
DIY Birch Cans
Don’t they look awesome on my distressed, aka. old, wood coffee table?! 🙂
What You’ll Need:
- Birch Bark – Lori gathered hers from downed birch trees in Maine, but I searched and you can also buy birch bark sheets on-line or at craft stores if you are like me, in Southern California, and there aren’t any birch trees!
- Empty Cans in different sizes – Soup, Beans, Tomato Sauce, whatever you can find! It is soup season after all!
- Hot Glue Gun
- Moss or Lichen to hide any holes, if needed.
- You may also need a tub of water and rubber bands or string if bark is too stiff
- Plastic Liners – soda/water bottles cut in half work well!
Steps:
- Clean and Peel any paper off cans.
- Hot Glue Pieces of Birch Bark to cans, covering can completely. Lori even wraps the bark over the top edge so you don’t see the rim of the can. (See tips for thick or different sized pieces of bark)
- Cover any holes in the bark (or just for extra texture) by gluing on some Moss or Lichen.
- Drop your plastic liner in and your ready to fill with flowers, candles, or anything else you can think of!
Tips from Lori:
- Sometimes I hit payday and have big pieces of birch that I can wrap around the cans. But most of the time, I have little pieces of bark that I have to piece together in layers, hiding the seams.
- Sometimes the bark is really thick, so I soak it in the bath tub to make it more pliable, then wrap it around the can, tie it in place and let it dry. After it dries, you can then glue it to the can.
- If there are any holes in the bark, I use pieces of moss and lichen to hide the holes so the can doesn’t show through!
- Cans will rust if you fill with water and don’t use a liner, so I found that plastic bottles, like water or soda bottles, cut in half work really well!
Check out some of the ways Lori has filled her birch bark ‘vases’…
Birch Bark Can Uses
Pretty cool, huh?! These vases would work great for a Woodland or Rustic Wedding, Thank you gifts (hand-picked flowers or grocery store flowers look even better when placed in a handmade vase!), Holiday Flowers (Lori made that Topiary with oasis foam and pruned holly shrubs from her front yard!)…the ideas are truly endless!
Stay Tuned, because next week, I will show you how to create cheap and easy centerpieces for Thanksgiving, and I will be using my Birch Bark Vases! 🙂
