Decorating with Birch Wood (or Facsimiles Thereof!)

If you recall, I mentioned we originally planted three white birch trees in our landscape in 2004, and the last two succumbed to birch bore last October.  The remains pictured below were all I had left to show for the eight years of nurturing my birch trees. :(

I recently heard a great statement about our state, West Virginia:  "we're the northern-most Southern state, and southern-most Northern state.  The USDA rezoned our area to Zone 7(a) in 2012 from its former Zone 6(b) in 2004, which basically means more northerly specimens of plantings (such as white birch) won't reliably survive, and more southerly ones will. It was a slow death for my birches, so over the past couple of years, I would take in a few of the smaller branches as they fell, and I would place them in my dried arrangements.  But the pile above begged for something more.

Fast forward to April of this year, and I placed a stack of dried branches into a basket in our TV/family room area, beside the fireplace (I had moved them to the garage for drying out through the winter) .

I have yet another stash that I filled in a rusted olive bucket, at the ready for mixing with what I already have for indoor decor, or for crafting ideas:

With my daughter getting married in October, I'm still pondering whether I'll use some of the logs to make some risers for what will be her 'cake' display (she's actually having cupcakes) or other table decor, or even make coasters for pitchers, etc.

I love clipping and pinning inspiration ideas for my racing mind, and if you follow my blog (and I hope you do or will!), I hope you will also follow me on Hometalk - the Home and Gardening Hub, (click here to go to my page).  

I just finished curating a board for various ways to decorate with birch wood / birch bark on Hometalk, and you can explore some of those ideas I have clipped to that board by clicking on the collage image below (the board has each clip and its original source / creator). And, by the way, you don't have to have access to real birch trees to do some of the projects I've clipped - some of them are with birch wrapping paper and others are with painting birch imagery onto furniture!  The ideas are for year-round interest, too, in both home and garden.

Here's an image of the board I just curated on decorating with birch wood:

Once you're at the linked page, just click on the "FOLLOW" button below my photo, and you'll be following all of my activity on Hometalk, including ideas I've shared, along with those of others I'm following.  Or, you can choose to just follow the particular boards you're interested in, or start your own! 

I have found Hometalk to be a very user-friendly way to not only clip ideas to boards, much like Pinterest, but to be able to engage with others through comments, messages, and even through posting questions, similar to Facebook. When you post an idea or question, the community of both pros and amateurs of members jump right in, and help you find answers to your everyday home and garden dilemmas, and give you immediate feedback on projects you're sharing.  

Many thanks to those who are following me and supporting me, both here and on Hometalk.  We all help each other in blogland, and that makes for some great conversation and friendships, both virtual and real!