A Craft A Week: Week 28 - Cork Board

I've been saving wine corks since I was... 26?  I always thought they looked pretty in a hurricane vase on a counter or bar.  Well, I never had a bar and I have kids so a glass vase on a counter was not a good idea.  I stopped saving them at one point but kept my collection "just in case".

 

Another item I have held on to for almost 3 years now is a frame that was used in my wedding to showcase the seating chart.  Shown here:

Put them together and what do we have?  A cork board!

I've been thinking of this idea since the wedding, wondering what I would do with the frame.  Then Pinterest came in to my life... for the second time, the first time we didn't have as much in common... and I found this Pin: Soak Corks Before Cutting

http://polkapics.net/2013/01/24/soak-corks-in-hot-water-for-10-minutes-before-cutting-them-for-crafts-they-wont-crumble-3/#sthash.zGGVIPs1.qjtu

 

Now the challenge was "where would I put it?"  Of course I still had to make it.  Months went by and we were rearranging our guest bedroom into my office.  At last I had the perfect place for my bulletin board.  Last night I was reorganizing my craft closet to fit everything that I had hidden under the guest bed in to the closet.  I found my bag of corks.  Today I jumped in to the task of making my long awaited bulletin board.

STEP ONE: Heat up the corks and cut.  I threw a bunch in a pot of water (they float of course) and turned on the heat.

After ten minutes I poured out the hot corks and started cutting.

An immediate slice to the finger and a blister on the thumb and I realized I wasn't going about this right.  I reheated up some water and placed the corks in to soak.  This time I left the corks in the hot water, only pulling out one at a time to cut.  Much easier.  Definitely keep the corks hot and moist.  They are so much easier to cut this way.  It was interesting to me which wines had the better corks.  I noticed that my favorite cork to cut was also my favorite winery: Beringer.

STEP TWO: Make your design.  Reed and I started placing our cork halves on the board to see how it would look.  Row after row, from left to right.

Once they were all placed, we noticed we had an uneven edge (see right side).  Hmmm. Not pretty.  Pinterest, any ideas?  YES!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Lolailo

STEP THREE: Hot glue the corks down to your frame.  I also glued the matting down too around the edges.

STEP FOUR: Hang your work and enjoy the project that has been years in the making (at least in my case).

The End.
What do you think?