Along the Seine River in Paris, lover’s carve their initials into the birch tree’s bark. This project is inspired by this act of love. We are stenciling real birch bark and using it to wrap around a vase of flowers!
Trees along the Seine..
Initials and hearts carved into the trees.
I foraged this fallen birch bark from some trees in Upstate New York. Thank you Mother Nature for the perfect paper.
I am going to use several of our letter stencils, different fonts and sizes – Old English, Corsiva, Industrial…
For a clean application, I am using a stencil brush and Clearsnap black ink. I love using their inks because, unlike paint, you can’t overload the brush with your medium.
Start by taping your bark to your work surface for a nice flat surface.
Use your stencil brush and pick up some ink.
I wrote the word “love” many times and with the somewhat see-through stencils, lining up your letters to spell words is easy…
love…
Keep going writing whatever words you want- A poem perhaps? LOVE? XO? I LOVE YOU?
Now it’s time to add a flower arrangement. We called in an expert in this case, Bridget Vizoso. Bridget is a floral artist and event planner and has mastered the art of floral arrangement. She creates sculptures with flowers and her work is beautiful and unexpected. She created this for us in about 20-30 minutes. She wrapped the bark using double stick and clear tape. Be sure to check out her beautiful work and workshops.
Here’s a shot of the back, a loving message from every angle.
This curling bark piece that says KISS ME should get a nice response…
I hope this inspires you to make something for a loved one or even for yourself. “If you don’t love yourself, how you gunna love anyone else?” Said by who? If you know, comment and share your projects with us @Stencil1.
