Making a Wine Cork Wreath

Wine cork wreaths are awesome because you can keep them up year round! Adding bows, flowers, ornaments, or whatever you want can keep them festive for any season. Things that you need to make the wreath are:

• Wine corks. A lot of wine corks. (around 150ish I'd say)
• Hot glue. (I used at least 25 mini sticks)
• A plain straw wreath
• String
• Bows/flowers for decoration 

I used a straw wreath as a base, but it was a little messy. I think using a styrofoam circle as a base might be easier. You can buy these wreaths at craft stores, I think I paid around $6.

Make sure you take the plastic off of it, but do not cut the twine. Use a sturdy string and tie it around the top before you start with the corks.

I work at a seafood/ steakhouse restaurant where we sell a lot of wine. I also have friends and family save their corks for me too. ( use your resources for finding corks! make friends with a bartender & have them save their corks for you!) Since I get most of mine from the restaurant, I have a lot of  the same corks. I separated the really cool & unique ones to the side and used the more plain and repeat ones at the beginning.

I didn't take pictures as I was making this wreath, but you'll be able to see in the pictures the pattern I followed/ made up. I started on the inside of the wreath, stacking the corks on top of each other. Once I got to the top, I just started gluing like crazy in every direction just to cover up all the straw.

It is tricky trying to get them to fit nicely by each other, so just be patient and play around with it.

After I had a pretty good base layer, I added on the cool corks that I set aside earlier and placed them wherever they could be seen. I pretty much only used one layer of corks and it turned out great! Once all the corks were in place, I lightly glued some flowers in and it was ready to  be hung.

This is the finished product! Except one of the flowers is M.I.A...I didn't want to glue them in with too much glue, because I want to be able to take them out and put other decorations on. Bows, ornaments and ribbons would all look great, too! Cheers.

Loom knitting different color hats

Now that you've mastered the basic loom knit hat, you'll be happy to know that it's easy to jazz them up into different patterns. To add stripes, simply cut your first color of yarn and double knot it onto a new skein of a different color yarn. Knit 3-5 rows, depending on how thick you want the stripes, and alternate until the hat is finished.

For the hat above, I didn't count consistently so the stripes came out uneven. I think it still looks good, but I wish I would have been more precise. 

Using two different colored yarns is also a cool way to make hats unique. For this one I used a bulky purple and then regular Red Heart white. Combining the two makes for a cool pattern. Just tie them together and use the two strands as one.

Using one color for the brim and another color for the top of the hat turns out nicely, too. The top right I used a camouflage yarn on the brim and hunters orange for the top. My dad is a hunter & absolutely loves it!  

This hat I made with the Detroit Lion's colors for a friend. Using multiple colors is a great way to show support for your favorite teams! Have fun and get creative with different colors and yarn types.

Making a Wine Cork Birdhouse

One of my favorite crafts to make are wine cork birdhouses! They're easy to make and look amazing when finished. They are perfect for decorating or giving as gifts.

Things you're going to need are:

• Wine corks
• Hot glue gun & glue sticks
• Wooden bird house
• Razor blade knife or exacto knife
• Cutting board

The wooden birdhouses can be found at your local craft store. I usually get mine from JoAnn's because they have a pretty good variety of shapes and sizes.

The razor blade knife works best when cutting the corks in half length wise. Personally, I think cutting the corks in half makes a cleaner looking finished product because it's not as bulky as using whole corks. It is also great because you don't need as many when you cut them in half! Champagne corks also look great when mixed in with regular corks. Fake corks can have really cool designs and are much easier to cut than real corks, it just depends on what type of look you want to go for.  It is important to lay the cut pieces out on each side of the house BEFORE gluing. You will find that you need to trim some corks to make them fit neatly. Once the glue dries, it is not an easy task removing the pieces.

For the birdhouse above, I left whole corks on the sides to give it a log cabin look, but used half corks for the front to keep the bulk down. As you can see toward the top you have to trim pieces to fill in the holes, doing whatever you can to make them fit! Here is a side view of the house. 

For the roof, I cut a whole cork into about 8 circle pieces and layered them into shingles. Cutting the circles in half makes for fun decorative pieces for any left over wood that is still showing. Here are a few different style bird houses.

The smaller bird house was much more difficult than the larger ones! I thought it would be a quick project but it was harder to find corks that would fit because you don't have as much room to work with. With some time and a lot of trimming, it ended up turning out cute. Just keep in mind that the bigger ones give you more room to work with.