Learn how to make a wine cork wreath the easy way! You can have a pretty piece of decor in minutes; this is perfect for beginners.
Skills Required: None. Even if you’ve never crafted before, you can make this wreath. You’ll be gluing corks to a wreath form and I’m going to show you exactly how it’s done.
There are some materials you just can’t let go into the recycle bin if you’re a crafter. Remember the quote from Elle Woods in Legally Blonde? “The rules of hair care are simple and finite. Any Cosmo girl would have known.” This is after she wins the big case in the movie.
Well my friends, the rules of crafting are also simple and finite. You don’t chuck perfectly good surfaces out with the recycling. You save glass jars, lids, egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, wine corks, sturdy cardboard boxes . . . the list goes on and on. You never know when you might need them.
And NO, you don’t necessarily know what you’re going to do with them when you save them, but that doesn’t matter. You’ll use them. Right?
That’s why I’m happy to share this wine cork wreath with you.
Because today, you’re actually going to USE those items you’ve been stashing away just for such a moment: wine corks. If you’ve never worked with cork before, it’s VERY easy.
You’ll be able to make this wine cork wreath regardless of your crafting expertise, so no worries. I’m going to show you the easiest way possible to make a DIY wine cork wreath!
Before we jump into the cork wreath tutorial, I wanted to answer a few frequently asked questions about this project.
Most wine cork wreaths that I’ve seen take at least 150+ corks if not 200 – 250. This wreath takes 101 corks and is about 13.5″ wide when it’s complete. This is because the corks hang off the edges when glued.
You have a few options. You can simply rinse them off. You can also bathe them in a solution of hot water and a splash of hydrogen peroxide overnight to sanitize and bleach them a little bit. You might not lose the wine staining completely, but the wine corks will be completely clean.
I definitely like hot glue, but you can also use craft glue or E-6000. If you use something liquid, the corks can separate and roll away until the adhesive starts to set.
So you may have to hold corks down depending on what kind of wreath form you use. In this case, you could use a light adhesive tape (like washi tape) to hold them together until dry.
There are wire wreath forms, extruded (rounded) wreath forms, and flat wreath forms. Wire is the most difficult to use for a cork wreath (see below).
You will see some people use rounded wreath bases, but you’ll have to use a lot more corks to get the coverage as you work the corks around the ring. You’ll see when you start gluing.
My personal preference is the flat wreath form. I have one made out of chipboard. They also sell similar flat wreath rings made out of wood called “floral rings.” They are typically found in the floral section of the craft store, so be sure to check there.
Note: if you found cardboard that was thick enough, you could cut your own wreath form. You could even cut multiple cardboard rings of the same size and glue them together. I already had this form, or that’s what I would’ve done!
Some people glue the corks directly the wire frame, even sticking them in the slots with glue on them. If that works for you, then fine. But if it were me, I would wrap the wire frame tightly with burlap ribbon.
This gives the corks something to grab onto and the burlap ribbon will disappear into the background. I personally feel this is a better solution because it gives you more surface area for glue and less chance of corks getting knocked off.
Absolutely! It works really well on cork.
Are you ready to jump into the tutorial? Get it below!
Gather These Supplies
NOTE: I used 50 wine corks for the first layer, 34 for the second, and 17 for the third = 101 wine corks. depending on the size of wreath form you have and the size of the wine corks, you may end up using a few more or a few less.
If your wreath form has a top (mine has a hanger), orient it toward the top of the work surface. At the very bottom center of the wreath form, hot glue a cork to the center. Right in the center of the curve.
To the right of the first cork, hot glue down a second cork. Make sure that you are following the curve of the ring.
Continue hot gluing corks around the center of the ring until you have completed the circle. If you notice that your corks aren’t going to fit the wreath form, use a knife to trim a cork and use the sandpaper to smooth.
Tip: Boiling corks makes them very easy to cut. I discovered this at almost the end of the project.
The sandpaper also comes in handy if you need to remove just a *little bit* of material to make the cork fit.
Next you’re going to add a second ring of wine corks around the outside of the row you just did, using the hot glue gun. Place one cork at a time.
Complete the ring of corks, trimming and sanding if necessary.
Now that you’ve got the hang of it, complete a third row of wine corks as shown above.
You have a foundation row of corks, so now you’re going to add a second layer to your wine cork wreath. You’re going to glue the corks down in between the other rings of corks, forming two rings.
You can spread these two rows out a little bit further as necessary to make the corks fit, since you have a row below already.
Finish the main portion of the wreath by adding a third row of corks.
To finish, make a loopy bow to wrap around the wreath and hang using a Bowdabra (yes, I have one) or this tutorial. I think my red buffalo plaid bow makes this wine cork wreath perfect for Christmas, don’t you? It’s a great recycled Christmas idea after all the drinking 😮
I think it would look lovely in the kitchen too. Or wherever you keep the wine!
Reposted through KVCore
Article link: https://diycandy.com/wine-cork-wreath/
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