Crafting With Wine Corks
- Personalized Wine Glasses
- Customized Champagne Flutes
- Etched Wine Glasses
- Wine Accessories
- Custom Etched Wine Glasses
- Fun Wine Glasses
- Custom Wine Glasses
- Wine Gifts
- Engraved Wine Glasses
- Personalized Wine Glass
Wine corks can make unique crafts and can be used as gifts for those wine lovers on your list that seem to have everything. Wine corks can make wreaths, bulletin boards, ceiling tiles and trivets. Some crafters prefer to buy unused wine corks while others like to use corks from wine bottles whose contents have already been enjoyed.
Cork is the inner bark of a tree. Only the bark is harvested, leaving the tree to re-grow more. Over the last twenty years, however, the demand for cork has increased far beyond the supply. This has resulted in alternatives being used in wine bottles such as composite cork (tiny bits of cork held together with glue) and rubberized stoppers. These are often found in wines that are expected to be consumed in the short term. Long term storage wines almost universally have real cork stoppers. These are the corks that work best when crafting with wine corks.
Making wine cork crafts is an easy process and requires little more than a hot glue gun. For a beginner, making a wine cork trivet is the easiest project that will give you a good feel for how the corks go together. There are elaborate designs with a backing frame but those are unnecessary for the trivet to be functional. Set out about 50 corks for the project. Make sure that they are all the same length. Standard corks are ¾’s of an inch wide but could be many lengths. Decide on the size of your trivet. Set your corks out in a pattern. A popular pattern is the contrast pattern. Place three corks horizontally to make a square. Beside that square, line up three corks vertically to make the next square. Continue to alternate the squares to make a patchwork effect. When the entire design is laid out, use the hot glue gun to place a bead of glue at the intersection of every cork. Place it carefully in the middle of the cork so that it stays adhered to the next one. Allow to dry completely for 2 hours.
Wine cork wreaths are very popular as gifts for wine connoisseurs. The beauty of the wreath is in the different corks represented so this is a perfect gift for friends who have donated their used corks for the project. There are many detailed instructions online for making wine cork wreaths but most require only the corks, a hot glue gun and a wreath frame available from most craft supply stores or online.
For those crafters looking for a little more direction in their work, there are many wine cork craft kits on the market that contain all of the materials to make the project along with a detailed set of directions. One example is The Tipsy Grape’s (thetipsygrape.com) wine cork bulletin board project. You can either make the bulletin board for someone on your holiday list or you can give the project kit as a gift for a crafting friend or family member.
Wine cork crafting is a fun project to do with the kids as well. It not only produces beautiful and functional results but shows children how to recycle cork, a disappearing resource. Wine cork crafts are inexpensive and unique. You may end up making several wine cork “gifts” for yourself.