Every Christmas I tend to become a craft nerd, whether it’s to make handmade ornaments, Christmas decorations, or Christmas gifts. This year I decided to make a Wine Cork Christmas Tree.
Wine Cork Crafting
I love sewing doll clothes, and have also sewn star ornaments. But I also enjoy making things from wine corks that I’ve collected. In the past, I’ve made cork ornaments as well as a grapevine wreath for myself and our oldest daughter.
Since it had been a few years, I decided it was time to see what I could do with my building wine cork collection. After a few minutes of counting, I found that I had collected over 120 corks. I’m sure there were a few from our oldest daughter thrown in for good measure.
To begin, I browsed the internet to find tree crafts and found a few that I liked. Some were very basic while others were more intricate. Of course, I was drawn to the fancier trees.
I decided on a project that would be fairly simple to put together and use only a minimal amount of craft items.
Instructions for Making This Craft
I started the construction with the foam cone, purchasing one that I thought would be the right height and width for my table. I went with one that was 4.8″ x 11.9″ and it was perfect for this project. However, my youngest daughter informed me that I would not be able to hot glue anything to the foam.
Oops. Hadn’t considered that. So, I covered the foam with green construction paper, sticking it on with some good old-fashioned Elmer’s Glue and Scotch tape. Once the paper was secure, I began hot gluing the corks to the tree.
I started at the bottom and built up from there in a haphazard fashion, leaving some blank spots to work with. Being the wine-snob that I have become, I wanted my favorite wines on the outer layer, so I used my so-so wine corks for the base.
My Favorite Wine Corks
Once I had the base of the tree covered in corks, I started in with my favorite wine corks —
Chateau Ste Michelle, Cambria Julia’s Vineyard, Francis Ford Coppola Wine, Caparzo Montealcino, Chateau Montelena, Cooper Mountain, Louis Jadot, Robert Mondavi, Sterling, Estancia, H3 Columbia Crest, William Hills, Ghost Pine, and Gnarly Head, to name a few.
I placed these here and there at angles and tilts that seemed to work with the names of the corks.
After I had all of the corks glued on, I then began poking the Christmas floral pieces into the foam. This was easy to do and worked fantastically. My package of floral pieces contained 18 sticks of a combination of greenery and berries.
The final step was to attach the red star ornament to the tree, again with hot glue. Ta da! I had a gorgeous Wine Cork Christmas Tree to enjoy this year and in the years to come. I think it will be perfect for a wine and cheese tasting party. Or simply as a table decoration.
