We had a little cork collection at our house, or should I say my daughter had been collecting my champagne corks and stashing them away in her drawer. I was very excited to find this collection one day while helping her to tidy her room and after much persuasion I managed to convince her to let me turn that pile of corks into a pretty and functional corkboard that would decorate her room.
What you’ll need
- Collection of corks of the same size
- Wooden shape i.e. star, heart, etc.
- Hacksaw
- File
- Hot glue gun
- Fixings for hanging on the wall
Activity
Now, believe it or not, we didn’t have enough corks. It looked like a lot, but when you pick a large shape to cover they don’t go very far, so we used a hacksaw to saw the corks in half to make double the amount. They are still thick enough to fit a push-pin/thumb tack in when they are cut in half and you are assured of a nice flat surface to use for gluing on later.
Carefully hold the end of the cork and, using a hacksaw work it back and forth to saw it in half. It’s not that hard to do and doesn’t take too long. It’s much easier and safer this way compared to cutting them with a scalpel.
To get a really nice smooth top to the cork, so that they all match, you can file them flat, as this before-and-after photo shows, using a metal file.
Heat up your hot glue gun and have a few extra sticks of glue handy (we used about three-and-a-half hot glue gun sticks for this star). While the glue gun is heating up, place your corks around your shape so that they fit neatly and there are no large gaps. If any are higher than the others you can easily file them down smaller.
Once you have your corks placed on your wooden shape where you would like them, pick each cork up one at a time and squeeze some hot glue at the bottom and then place it back down straight away onto your wooden shape. You only need a very small amount of glue, like a large pea. If you don’t use too much glue it won’t be messy and you shouldn’t see any excess glue squashing out of the sides. Pick up another cork and do the same thing and keep gluing the corks on one by one until they are all secured to your wooden shape.
Screw in some hanging fixings to the back of your corkboard so that it can be hung up on the wall and pick some inspirational items to pin to your new corkboard.
So remember, the next time you’re about to throw a perfectly good champagne or wine cork away, think twice and stash them away until you have enough to make a cute corkboard of your own.
For more great DIY ideas, go to Craftsmumship.
