Decorative Wine Cork Bulletin Boards

Another medium I've been saving since about 2010-2011, is wine corks. It all started when I made my kitchen table top out of bottle caps. That project would not have been possible without the help of my sister, who worked as a server at a restaurant/bar at the time. Each time she went to work, she would bring home a bag of goodies that the bartender saved for her. Sometimes it was all caps (which was wonderful for the old project!) and other times I would have a gallon sized bag full of wine corks.  I thanked her repeatedly for humoring my crafting habits, but I wasn't sure what the heck I was going to do with those corks.

Eventually I used quite a few to fill my metal initial wall hangings (from LTD) in my living room. For that project, I really wanted a lot of different, unique wine corks. And a lot of the corks she brought me were synthetic, which look really uniform and significantly less cool from the ends than real cork does. I sorted through and chose a few, but I still had this giant bag left over once I found some for the letters. Also, I figured out that I really needed to expand my pallet and drink some reds! They are much prettier corks :)

My large collection of wine corks, all recycled!!
(Purchasing items I could save for free sounds yucky. and just plain silly!)

So many corks!!

So really, for about 5-6 years I've just been hording this big bag of corks. It has traveled through about 5 moves and continued to grow and grow and grow...  I even have a whole Pinterest board devoted to cork projects but I just couldn't make my mind up. Like what the heck do I want to do with all these that will be useful AND add beauty? There are so many cool things to do with corks that I just couldn't make up my mind.  Finally, this year I decided that I really needed somewhere to hang up cards, pictures, wedding invitations, birth announcements/showers, etc. I'm at the age where everyone is sending info about life events and my fridge is just full and cluttered! I keep knocking things off and there is no room for new items.

Once I had the idea, I couldn't figure out what I was going to use on the back side to glue my corks to. I thought about grabbing a piece of plywood, but good lord that would have been a heavy wall hanging. And so the idea sat in my mind for another couple of months... but then in mid-June, I was in Michael's looking for something for another project.  I was up and down all the isles at least three times but wasn't finding what I needed and I happened to stumble upon a bunch of Laser Cut Wood Plaques. The lightbulb in my head was shining bright. AHHH! Perfect! How wonderful, and how had I not seen these before? ON SALE? It's a sign from above!!! Needless to say those were most definitely purchased during my impromptu craft store trip :)

Look at these wonderful beauties!! *heart eyes emoji*

I set out right away to begin gluing all the corks. Looking back, I probably should've painted these before I glued, but what the heck. I was just too darn excited and I wasn't sure if I would like the unfinished look or not.

Just a couch full of corks. Everyone has that right?

I didn't want to just glue the corks down in a straight line, so I chose a herringbone pattern. Once I got it started, it was so super simple to keep going with. Also the herringbone pattern kept the corks pretty tight together and aligned. Even if I did mess up the pattern, you really can't tell at all.

About 2 hours of gluing, a burnt finger and a blistered hand from cutting later, they are finished! Well mostly....

The only problem with the herringbone was that I had to cut the corks that went over the edge. I'm a pretty "lets go with the flow" kind of person when it comes to crafting. Things are not always measured. I didn't use a ruler to mark of the cork (partly because I don't know where one is) and I think it still looks great! But if I were to keep making these, a ruler would've been so much more helpful. But honestly part of the jaggedness comes from the fact that it was freaking hard to keep the knife lined up. I kept thinking I had this straight line but then I would start to slice just a little to the left and bam I was all jacked up and had to figure out a way to fix the dang thing.

The left hand side shows the jacked up lines. Whatevs I am over it ;)
(mantra of the day: go with the flow, go with the flow)

So then I was tasked with painting the boarder. I kept with the Yellow/blue theme I've got going on throughout my downstairs living spaces. Again, I should've painted these first but I didn't so I had to tape up the corks to keep them yellow free as I spray-painted (plus I know I am a messy spray painter).

And here are the lovely results!! What a wonderful, simple project this was. The best part was how cheap it was and that I got to put my recycled goodies to use finally.

The finished product after the paint dried. I love the pop of color.

I generally go with the "uneven" look to hang things up, because then if one is not perfectly
lined up it won't bother me! I tend to be a little OCD about that...

Look how wonderful my pictures/cards/invitations look!

Now I just need people to send me some more items haha :)