Bring The Outdoors In With A DIY Rustic Birch Tree Vase

Unique natural accent pieces are a way to not only add style to your spaces but also bring in a bit of the natural world from your surroundings. The textures found in the outdoors can add character and dimension to your rooms, no matter your design style, but are especially useful for cottage, farmhouse, and similarly rustic spaces where they fit in among items like woven baskets, greenery, and materials culled directly from nature. 

A tutorial on the Hallmark Channel shows how to bring some of that outdoor charm inside with adorable wood-burned bark accents that are perfect for everything from vases and boxes to planters and other containers. The result is a customized item that looks expensive despite easy assembly, low price tag, and endless customization options. 

These bark-wrapped pieces work particularly great as centerpieces that you can fill with botanical elements or glowing candles. Ideal containers to add them to include inexpensive new or upcycled cans, boxes, or jars, which can be turned into charming DIY lanterns and vessels. They would also make adorably simple rustic centerpieces or wedding favors that you can customize with the initials of the bride and groom. You can also hang sheets as art for some easy and unique rustic décor for your walls. 

To create this lovely DIY, you will need sheets of birch bark, which can be found via Amazon — or maybe even some of the trees shedding it in your backyard. You can also use faux birch bark available from craft stores, which comes in rolls, sometimes with additional moss for a green and biophilic interior décor flair. 

Flatten out your piece of bark and use a pencil to draw your design. Don't worry about being perfect; the end result should look more primitive and imperfect, like if you were making a real tree carving. Use a wood-burning tool, which you can also find on Amazon, to trace over your design, darkening its edges to look like it's carved. You can do a traditional heart with an arrow, or get creative with words, initials, or other shapes.

After it has cooled, use hot glue to wrap the piece around the container you are applying it to. You can also do this step before carving if you want to get a better sense of how things will look taking into account the shape of the container for reference. You can leave your bark sleeve as is, or add other elements to your container like jute twine, berries, and other accents.