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April 5, 2019 · Leave a Comment

Spring Break Craft: Wine Cork Flag

Life Lessons

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Spring break this year wasn’t glamorous. One kid got the flu, the other got annual shots, I got a cold, and of course it was a drill weekend for Hubster (It’s ALWAYS a drill weekend, it seems). Also it snowed. At any rate, there wasn’t a lot of extra time for sleep, projects, or even a ton of relaxing. Still, I carved out two hours to create something with my hands, a rare feat in my world. I managed a Pinterest project and did NOT fail: I made an American flag out of wine corks.

Making a Wine Cork Flag

In the busyness of the week, I was proud of myself. I squeezed in one Lizzy-only movie (a contrived Hugh Grant rom-com, totally worth it) and one homemade gift. My sister-in-law’s birthday is this month, but she has been a little inundated with gifts since she got married two weeks ago. I wanted to make something that wasn’t totally stupid or ugly, preferably with the large amount of wine corks I’ve been saving throughout 8 years of marriage thinking I’d have a cool craft for them.

Lesson: Most “Wine cork crafts” are stupid

When I first searched Pinterest for “wine cork crafts” I gleaned hundreds of projects, many of which are quite frankly stupid. Who wants a kitchen utensil holder made out of corks? How about coasters? Nothing makes a good coaster for fragile glasses like a not-quite-level chunky surface. Or a chandelier? How bohemian. And probably not up to electrical code. Redoing a kitchen? Definitely a wine cork backsplash will be a major selling point (and so easy to clean!).

Anyway, I was inspired by tutorials like this one on a wine cork flag. I also read a few posts on how to work with cork, including one that suggested I steam them for a few minutes before I try to cut them. That one was helpful.

My inspiration image, from Pink Fortitude. I sort of had this image in my head, and then figured out the craft the way I hoped it would turn out.

Supplies

  • Wine corks
  • Cardboard (for backing)
  • Cutting board (or lots of extra cardboard)
  • Utility knife
  • Paint (I used $.79 acrylic paint from Michael’s)
  • Smallish paint brush for stars
  • Hot glue gun
  • Optional: steamer
  • My total cost: about $4 worth of paint, glue, and ribbon. The wine corks are a labor of love.

Step one: estimate

Most tutorials had specific numbers of corks, but it really depends more on how big I want my finished product. I used a shoe box lid from my son’s dress shoes we bought for a wedding as my “template” to estimate how many corks I would need, especially if I cut them in half. The lid is about 7″x9″, a little smaller than a sheet of paper. If I cut my corks in half, I needed about 19-20 corks.

Step two: prepare

I read a few additional tutorials on working with corks, but really the only lesson I followed was to steam my corks for a few minutes first. This allegedly makes them less crumbly when cut. I seemed to do okay, but since I didn’t use an unsteamed cork as a control for this experiment, I can’t say for sure this step matters.

I am not a cook; I probably boil more water for crafting and sterilizing than for food preparation.

Step three: cut

I used a cutting board and a plain old utility knife from our work bench, but there are probably better knives out there for this step. I sliced most of my corks in half lengthwise, and a few in thirds because I wanted to vary my blue star space on the finished product.

Step four: estimate again

I know from previous crafting that if I don’t keep realigning what I want, something won’t measure correctly, so I rearranged my cut corks several times in my shoe box lid stencil. Then, I cut a new piece of cardboard a little smaller than the lid so my corks would hang off a bit on the edge.

Step five: paint!

I used $.79 acrylic paint from Michael’s in red and blue; I planned to make use the natural cork for the white stripes. I didn’t put a thick coat on, as I wanted the cork designs to come through. Then, I rearranged again on my cardboard.

I also painted the back of my cardboard in acrylic white, just to make it prettier. I added a note for my sister-in-law too, to make it difficult for her to regift later if she decides she hates it 🙂

back-cork-flag-tutorial

Step six: glue

In a stroke of good luck, I found a small strip of fabric lace in one of my craft boxes (I’m sure there is a technical name for this but I have no idea what it is). I had just enough to go around the edge of the cardboard, so I hot-glued that to serve as a border.

I arranged all my corks and then picked them up one by one to glue on using my mini hot glue gun. I debated painting the front of the cardboard too, but decided colors might be more obvious than the natural cardboard.

My one mistake in gluing was that I lined up all my corks and glued down on the right side, so that side is straight. By the time I finished gluing, my left and top edges got a little wonky. If I do this again, I will begin gluing from the center; any good floor tiler knows this, but I am not a good floor tiler.

Step seven: admire!

I am very pleased with how this turned out, but debated adding stars lest I screw it up. I attempted to make a star “stamp” out of another cork (another Pinterest tutorial) but this was an epic fail; there was no uniformity at all. I ended up free-handing stars with a small paintbrush to try to fix the kerfuffle of my stamping attempt, and it turned out okay. The final product definitely looks homemade!

The blue corks had been straight when I first laid them out, but got bumpy by the time glued those last. Next time I will glue either from the blue section or from the center and radiate out.

If you decide to try out something like this, please share your final product. I do not consider myself a crafter, but I will definitely keep drinking wine now that I know my corks can have new life! My next cork craft goal: Christmas ornaments. OR if you find another really stupid thing someone tried to make with wine corks, share that too!

Thanks for sharing!

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