This project was inspired by Pinterest – again. I love wine
and my man and I have been saving our wine corks for several years now. About 4
years ago we threw out 5 years worth of corks and I still cringe thinking about
it so instead of letting that happen again I took to Pinterest to see what others
had created from wine corks. Fortunately, I found all sorts of fun ideas.
For this Artsy Monday post I decided to
make a wine cork trivet in the shape of a cluster of grapes.
My finished project
If you click on the picture above it will take you to the home page for the winery that makes the wine shown in the picture. I've been really pleased with these wines!
Supplies:
- Wine corks – I used 32. If you are really
talented at cutting them in half then you could get away with 16. I chose to
not worry about it and just cut them all to 1” tall.
- E6000 Glue
- Scissors
- Felt (I used dark red)
- Sand paper
- Sponge Brush
Decoration items: not required for trivet
- Large silk leaves (any shape)
- Plain computer paper
- Pins
- Garland with brown wire base
1) The first step is to cut the corks in half or to 1”.
Wine
corks are approximately 1 ¾ inches tall so if you are cutting them to 1” you
will not have two even pieces which means you will need more corks. I had my guy cut them using his table saw
which made it really easy! If you choose to cut them to the 1” mark, be sure
that the wine colored end is the end you make 1” unless you want to mix it up
and have red and natural ends. We tend to drink about 3 times more red wine
than white wine so I went with all red wine corks. I also like the look of the
wine stained end so I chose to use that end as the top of my trivet.
You do not need to use a table saw to cut our corks. Cork is
a fairly easy material to cut by hand and you can use an Exacto knife or a
small hand held saw or you can even leave them as they are and have a taller
trivet.
2) Sand the ends of the corks to eliminate any rough edges
and to even out the surface if necessary.
3) Once your corks are cut you will want to lay them out in
the shape that you like. I did several layouts, taking pictures each time,
until I found one that I really liked.
4) Once you find a layout you like you will start to glue.
This process was definitely trial and error for me. I went online to find the
best glue to use for cork and got several different results. Many people had
luck with super glue, others liked gorilla glue and still others liked E6000.
Since all 3 are heat resistant and I had super glue I tried that first.
Super glue is great for lots of things but I did not like it
for gluing the cork. If you get a little bit too much not only does it take a long
time to dry, you can quickly glue your fingers together (ask me how I know!) I
did not have much luck with the super glue.
Gorilla glue is an amazing product but it does not dry clear, it must be clamped to form a strong bond and it expands while drying so it could look really clumpy if you are not extremely
careful! I didn’t want to see the adhesive so I chose to use the E6000 as my next adhesive experiment.
At first I was skeptical of the E6000, it takes a while to
dry and I wasn’t sure it was going to hold the corks together, especially since
I was not clamping them together. What I found was that if you apply a nice
line of E6000 to the cork and let it sit for about 30 seconds to a minute and
then attach it to the next cork it adheres fairly well.
Adhering the corks to each other takes a bit of time. Before
adhering a cork in place I first set in where it would go and then looked for
the contact points, especially if it would be adhering to more than one cork. You
want to be sure that you have a line of glue on each cork that the one you are
working with comes in contact with.
I started at the bottom tip of the cluster and worked my way
up. Once I had my entire cluster glued, leaving the cluster on the table, I gently
pressed the corks together, making sure to keep the shape as I went. Then the hard part – I let it sit overnight to
dry!
The next morning I went in and was thrilled with the
results! Because I wanted to use this on my table I chose to add a felt bottom.
Not only will this keep the corks together it will provide an nice soft surface
between my trivet and the table.
5) Trace your cork grape cluster onto a piece of
copy/computer paper. Cut the out the
shape being sure to cut well inside the trace line.
6) Before cutting the felt lay your paper template on the
bottom of the cork trivet and adjust it for size. You do not want the felt to hang over the edge
of the cluster. This is not a design detail that needs to be seen, just a
functional one. Once you are happy with the size of the template pin it to your
felt and cut it out. Double check the size of the felt on the bottom of the trivet before you glue.
7) Apply additional E6000 adhesive to the bottom of the
trivet. I also added extra adhesive between the corks that were close to the edge to add
additional strength. Be sure that you do
not get the adhesive too close to the edge; you want to cover this layer of
adhesive with the felt and do not want excess adhesive showing. Fortunately
E6000 drives clear so if you do have some excess if will not be too noticeable.
Once you have the additional E6000 on the corks take a sponge brush and brush
the adhesive to form a nice thin layer. Top with the piece of felt
you cut previously.
8) Let dry. HARDEST STEP!
Decorating your trivet
You do not need to add any additional decoration to your
trivet however I decided to make a couple of leaves and some curlicues to dress
it up a bit. These are not permanently attached so I can remove them if I want
to use it for something hot.
Rather than purchasing grape leaves I dug through my stash
of craft supplies and found some silk leaves from a large floral pick that I got at my local craft store. You want to make sure the leaves are larger than what
you need because you are going to cut them.
I went online to find a grape leaf pattern and found this
perfect picture. The original picture compared a maple leaf to a grape leaf and can be found by clicking on the picture above or using the link here:
http://www.tsocktsarina.com/blog/?p=227
. I then re-sized the picture in a word document to the size leaf that I wanted
and printed out my template.
Many silk leaves have plastic stems attached to them, as
mine did. These stems easily peel off the leaves. Grasp the leave near the stem in one hand and
the stem itself in the other then gently pull the two pieces apart. Set the stem aside.
Take the leaf template that you have sized and pin it to the
leave, far enough down that the stem area is in the leaf you are going to cut
then cut out a leaf.
I leave the stem area
uncut on the template which give me additional support and control when cutting
out the tiny stem from the leaf. In this project we are going to remove the
stem from the leaf and add a plastic stem so you do not need to worry about the
stem if you do not want to. I suggest cutting the first leaf this way to see
the difference of the additional support the paper provides.
Once you have both leaves cut you will take one of the
plastic stems and cut it in half. Remove a couple of the “veins” that are below
the tip; leaving the tip and the two “veins” below it to support your leaf. Remove
any remaining “veins” left on the half stem you are working with. If the
plastic vein supports are longer than your leaf trim them to fit.
Glue the stem to the back of the leaf and then
trim the plastic stem to size. Complete the second leaf in the same fashion.
To make the curlicues I used the brown covered wire from a berry
Christmas garland that I purchased on clearance at my local craft store. You
can get great deals on garland right after the holidays – any holiday! I look
for the brown based as well as metallics as these are the types I tend to use
most.
Remove any decoration from the garland so that you are left
with the paper wrapped wire. Wrap the “good”
end, the end that was not attached to the garland, tightly around a small
paintbrush or pencil. Slide the tight coil off the end of the rod you used and
gently pull apart and bend to shape.
Wrap the other end around the stem of the leaf. You will do
this for each leaf. Once both leaves have curlicues take another piece of wire
and wrap them together at the stem.
Bend wired stems in a 90 degree angle from the leaves and
slide into a hole between the corks.
I hope you enjoyed this project. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to email me using hte link on the right.
Thanks for stopping by!
