Wine Cork Obsession

Wine Cork Obsession

January 24th, 2013

It all started when I saw this, on Etsy:

For 45 dollars plus shipping. Then I thought to myself, eff that, I'll make my own. Strong glue, a frame, and some hooks? Easy. I just have to go my favorite store in all of Europe, OBI, no problem. But where could I get hundreds of wine corks? Oh wait that's right, I live in europe, SO ANYWHERE.

I went to a little wine and chocolate boutique, and sure enough, met a sweet lady who loves wine, and gave me a bag of about 100 corks, and then told me about the magic of wine-cork-depositories. Apparently, (I haven't found any in jolly old Offenburg) they have areas where people go to drop off their wine corks so they can be recycled, so next time I need some corks I will just steal some from there. I'm not recycling, I'm UP-cycling.

So I went to OBI and got a frame and some wood glue, then I stopped at Hobby Kunst (a sweet craft store with the worst store hours EVER) and got some paint because the cheapest frame at OBI was white, and I wanted my frame to match my bedroom color-scheme, which is various shades of red and black. While I was at it I got a few more paints and a few more frames so I could paint them later for fun. I really enjoy altering pieces of art or anything really that goes into my house, even if it turns out looking weird I feel like it's more mine than it was when I first bought it.

This is my favorite thing to do when painting things, the old preschool painting-doilies trick.  

It turned out a little messy, but that's fine with me. On Etsy when you fuck something up you call it 'shabby chic,' so that's what this is.

I first put the frame around the backing that it came with so that it would fit over the corks. You don't have to be too precise because once the wood glue is dry it isn't coming off, and the corks are fairly flexible so you can wiggle the frame on and squish them around a little bit so they are tight. Adding the glue was the only difficult bit, and good god wear gloves, that glue was hard to get off my fingers. I added a line of glue on the bottom of the cork lengthwise, and on the sides, and on the flat parts of the end, so that it would not only stick to the backing of the frame, but to the other corks around it. Let the glue dry for at least an hour before you put the frame on.

Voila, frame-on. Later on I decided that the red designs were ugly so I painted over them. Let it sit like this overnight, to make sure everything is dry and secure. Screw some hooks into any of the corks for hanging rings and necklaces.

All done!  It looks really pretty, though I'll have to make a bigger one soon because the more jewelry I buy to decorate it the less room I have. Also sometimes I prefer hanging earrings on the hooks because my corks weren't glued tight enough against each other in some places, so the earrings don't wedge tight enough between the corks to hang properly. This entire project costed 18 euros, the most expensive part was the frame. 

Had some left over, made a couple coasters!