cork love!

I've been feeling crafty lately, and last weekend, I finished the wine cork wreath that I'd been working on for a few weeks! I've been collecting corks for a while now, and have made several things with them (remember the trivets I made?). Of course, the idea was from pinterest (where else?), and I saw several different variations of the wreath, and wasn't sure exactly how I wanted mine to look, so I played around with a few ideas.

I bought a wire wreath frame from Joann Fabrics (it was less than $3, and I believe it's 12" around?). I had first played around with the corks on the frame, trying to figure out how I wanted them placed, and wasn't liking it. I bought this bag of straw-stuff, and attempted to use it to fill the spaces, and figured I'd put the corks all over that, but the stuff is SO messy, and it actually looked weird, I thought!

I had this cranberry colored ribbon, which I thought might work well, so I wrapped it around the wreath. I wanted something for the corks to sit on, to give them some further structure. This worked really well! It was a wide ribbon, and I love the color, so I don't mind any peeking out between some of the corks!

I used a glue gun, for the most part, since it dries so quickly, but I ran out, and attempted using modge podge...which I am a huge fan of, but I had forgotten how long it takes to dry! I went out later and bought more glue sticks :)

I used mostly actual cork corks, not the synthetic ones- though I have a fair amount of those too, so I made a row of them going around the wreath, as more of a base for the main corks. Then I starting using the "real" corks, and placed them somewhat haphazardly, in not much of an order, in all directions! I tried to make the name of the winery visible, and in some cases, you can see the stains from the red wine, which gives it character, I think!

Yes, my glue gun is pink :)

It was somewhat time consuming, but fun, and I liked seeing the corks, as reminders of many of the wineries I've visited, from Virginia to New York to Washington!

Here is the final result, and I hung it on the pantry door in our kitchen!

Have you made anything from wine corks? Am I a little crazy to have so many corks lying around my house? :)