Stick A Cork On It!

I'm a cork saver.

Yep, after every bottle of wine, I save the cork.

Now, over MANY MANY MANY years (I didn't want anyone to think this amount was recent), I've collected quite a bit.

Probably around 75 or so.

What do you do with all those corks?

Pinterest ideas of course.

So I did and here is the result.

I went through each of the corks and organized them by cork design and wine.  

It was a random thing to do, but I liked that certain corks were more intricate than others.

I gathered 18 corks for each project.

I also grabbed some cork tiles and cut them into a 6x6 inch square. 

You could use any base you like, I just happened to have these cork tiles available.

I inspected my corks to make sure that any "flea bites" were going to face down once the project was done.

This was also a matter of preference.

I let my hot glue gun heat up and started to apply the corks to my cork tile.

I placed two, side by side, facing up.

They glued on like a dream.

Adding some stipes of hot glue next to those, I added two more corks.

This time, I turned them perpendicular to the first pair.

I then put the next two opposite of those two, matching the first pair.

I repeated the hot glue and pairs of corks.

Each pair was placed in the opposite direction of the previous pair, which also meant that existing pairs that it touched were also in opposition.

When I was done gluing, I had this!

I wanted to finish the edge of the cork tile, so I took some Dollar Tree "cork" ribbon, cut it to the thickness of the cork tile and hot glued it around the base.

Another option I tried was using this Burlap Trim, also from the Dollar Tree.

I wrapped that around the actual corks.

It was literally a matter of playing around with all the materials to see how I wanted it to go.

I made sure not to worry about any gaps that were showing between the corks.

There's no way you will be able to snug your corks perfectly against one another.

In about 20 minutes...

I had two cork trivets, full of sweet wine memories.

They are perfect to use as hot pads on my dining room table.

I ended up making 5 in all.

And, since I didn't need a hot pad, I placed them under my Dollar Tree candles as a centerpiece for a dinner party I just had.

These would be a great gift idea.

If you did only 8 corks you could make adorable drink coasters.

The ideas are endless, just check out Pinterest!