Wine Cork Boards

 You have a lot of flexibility when it comes to deciding on a pattern. Paired with a bottle of wine, these make a great gift!

Supplies
Open Back Frame (The type used for framing canvases)
Hot glue gun
Large piece of cardboard
Wine Corks (Must be made of real cork! Not synthetic cork, like those found in Barefoot)
Serrated knife
Wire

    You can purchase a sheet of cardboard or be resourceful and use cardboard from a UPS shipping box! Cut out a rectangle large enough to cover the opening in the back of the frame. This will you give you something to glue the corks too. Use hot glue to affix cardboard edges to the back of the frame. Make sure the side facing the front of the frame is brown so that it won't be noticeable through any gaps in the corks.

     Now you need to decide on the pattern you would like to create! For the brown frame, I used a serrated knife to cut the corks in half and incorporated the ends into my pattern. Some wineries have designs on the tops and bottoms of their corks so this is a good way to showcase this!  I never had any issues with the corks crumbling on me when cutting them. I have seen tips on boiling/steaming wine corks to prevent crumbling, so you can try this if you run into problems. (Hint: Not every wine cork is equal. You will notice that some are shorter and some are longer. Try to group similar sizes together, this will keep you from having odd gaps between the corks if they are not the same length) I used two champagne corks in the white frame. They are a good way to cover a lot of space if you find yourself with a big gap.

     Once you have a premise for the pattern you can begin hot gluing. You may get to the end of a row of column and the final corks do not fit! This was very frustrating for me!! To solve this problem I shaved off a few centimeters on the preceding corks with a serrated knife until they were at a length where they fit inside the frame.

     To hang the cork board, most frames have rings mounted on the back, through which you can thread a wire. These boards look great as is, but if you want to make them functional see below for directions on how to craft some fun pins!

Note: When browsing the internet, I came across a few sets of instructions that recommended against the use of hot glue because the corks may pop off. So far I have found no problems with the corks adhering with the hot glue! I will update you with any changes :)

 

Sea Glass Thumb Tacks



Supplies

Thumb Tacks

Sea glass

Hot glue

This is such an easy and creative way to spruce up some regular old thumb tacks. And they are a great addition to your wine cork board! Simply hot glue the sea glass pieces to plain thumb tacks and let the glue set. You can also use small sea shells instead of sea glass!

 

Happy Crafting!

A cute way to showcase your wine cork collection!