How To Turn Birch Bark Into Paper

Do you have birch trees near your home?

Did you know you can easily use their bark as paper?

Birch bark is so neat, and makes a really fun paper you can use for

crafts, cards, making baskets, and so many different things.

The Native Americans have been using birch bark 

for all sorts of things for many many years.

Now I am no professional, but here is how I did it and it worked well!

Peel a large chunk of bark from a tree. This will not hurt the tree;

notice it is peeling on its own in places already...

 Put a little bit of mild dish soap in your hands with a little bit of 

warm water, and scrub it around to make it sudsy.

 Then gently soap up both sides of the bark, with warm water 

running over it. Use your fingers to gently rub any dirt or film of 

old dark bark off of the outer/ lighter colored surface.

Once the bark is dampened, you should be able to peel the layers of bark apart.  

The piece I used peeled into three layers. 

 In between the layers, it is sort of chalky.

Wash the layers just as you did before.

Place the bark layers on a paper towel to dry. 

Stack paper towel on top of the bark, and place a book on top.

This helps the bark to dry flat rather than curled.

Remove the birch paper once dried, and you are finished! :)

You can fold, cut, glue, and write on it, just like paper! 

Tomorrow I will share what I did with mine...

Have fun! 

-Sylvie