How To :: Make A Wine Cork Holiday Wreath

Before my grandfather passed away he had his local pub save boxes and boxes of wine corks for him. I think they were originally going to go to my aunt but somehow I ended up with them. I’ve been pinning tons of wine cork projects on my pinterest and finally settled on a wine cork wreath. I found one similar to the one I created above but it lacked any sort of instructions so I figured I’d make one and tell the blogosphere how to make a wine cork wreath.

Start with a straw base like the one above. They come wrapped in plastic wrap, you’ll need to take that off, but wait until right before you start the project, otherwise you’ll have straw everywhere.

You’ll also need a whole heck of a lot of wine corks. Though I think you could probably make this with the plastic ones the real cork ones work best. A variety of shapes, sizes, and labels are also a plus. A few other things you’ll need are a hot glue gun, hot glue sticks, thick floral wire (the strips, not the roll), wire cutters, ribbon, and berry picks (if you want to use them).

Many of the tutorials I read said to just hot glue the corks on the straw. I wanted to make sure they lasted over time and instead of attaching them on their sides (where the surface area would be larger) I wanted to glue them on their ends so they’d stick out and have more texture. I also really liked the look of all the shades of red from the ends of the wine stained corks.

So I developed this way. I cut about 3″-4″ long strips of floral wire (the thicker kind), dabbed a bit of hot glue on the cork and on the end of the wire and jabbed it into the cork. There was already a hole in most of the corks from when the cork screw went in so I usually just used that same hole. This process takes a while because you have to do it with each cork and there’s at least 100 or so on the wreath. Bill and I had fun doing it together, listening to music and chatting. The time it took actually flew by.

After you get quite a few going you can start putting them in your straw wreath.

Put some hot glue on the end of the wine cork (the end with the wire sticking out) and a little bit on the wire itself. Then you stick it in the straw part of the wreath. You want to go in a line starting with the part of the wreath that will sit against the wall.

It’s important to rejoice at every completed row!

Once you complete row one start on row two and keep going row by row until you fill the whole front side of the wreath. You don’t want to go all the way around because you won’t see what is on the back and you’ll want it to lay flat against the wall or door you hang it on.

As with any home project Sam is there to help by smelling and inspecting things.

I love the texture and colors. The advertising side of me loves seeing all of the different brands and logos. They’re all so individual.

We wanted to make it even more festive by adding red ribbon and some fake berry picks. I chose the dark red berries to replay the colors of the wine stained corks, but really you could use any kind of berry pick or holiday pick. I think feathers would be really cool, or something glittery.

I weaved the berry picks in between the corks, cutting them down when needed. Once I got everything where I liked it I went back and stuck them into the exposed straw where I could and hot glued them down.

To add the ribbon I knew I wanted a bow at the top and enough ribbon to hang the wreath. I weaved the ribbon around the corks and left enough on each end to tie a bow and leave a good bit to hang it with.

The last and final step (if you want to) which I didn’t take pictures of is I took a bit of left over felt and hot glued it to just the back of the straw wreath where it lays against the wall. Really the only reason why I did this was to keep the straw from littering my house every time I took the wreath out. 🙂

And that’s it! Our wine cork holiday wreath is currently hanging on the inside of our front door. We love it!

If anyone else follows this tutorial I’d love to see photos of what you create! What holiday crafts are you planning?