DIY Cork Trivets

I have been quite the crafty lady lately! Yesterday, I created a craft for an upcoming Phi Mu event. My local alumnae chapter does a fall kickoff brunch at the end of August that has a silent auction. The proceeds from our auction benefit Children's Miracle Network, as it is Phi Mu's national philanthropy. The theme of our silent auction is "Make it, Bake it, Sew it, Grow it", so whatever you bring to contribute has to be homemade.

I decided to make a set of kitchen trivets (you know the things you set a hot dish on), out of wine corks. I have made a bulletin board out of wine corks before, but I wanted to do something a little smaller for the auction.

If you are interested in make a craft out of wine corks, the first thing you have to do is acquire a ton of wine corks. Before you judge...no, my personal wine drinking habit did not supply me with all of these corks. I got them from outside sources.

Option #1: go to a local winery. If you live near a winery that provides wine tastings, go there first. They open a ton of wine bottles each day and they usually just throw all the corks into a bag behind the counter that they throw away when it gets full. The winery I went to gave me a huge paper bag of used corks for free. Ask and you shall receive :)

Option #2: go to a restaurant that typically sells a lot of wine. Ask them what they do with their wine corks after they use a bottle of wine. My aunt happens to own a restaurant in South Florida so I had her save up some of their wine corks for me. Do not go to a craft store and buy wine corks. It will cost you an absolute fortune to buy the number of corks that you will need to make anything substantial.

Once you have your wine corks, here is how you make the trivets:

#1. Get some strips of wood to use as your frame. These pieces are each 8 inches long. I painted mine black for a more polished look. You can get pre-cut pieces of craft wood at any craft store.

#2. Hot glue your wood strips into a box shape to make your frame.

#3. Pick out what pattern you want your corks to go in. They can all face one direction or be alternating, whatever you prefer. I choose to do mine all in one direction because that was what fit best into my frame.

#4. Start hot gluing your corks in place.

Your corks are probably not going to all fit in perfectly. You have two choices: You can either cut your frame to fit your corks or cut your corks to fit your frame. Since I did not feel like busting out my power saw, I opted to cut my corks to fit my frame. You can cut wine corks with a sharp kitchen knife, just be careful :)

Ta-da! All finished and ready to use.

While this might be the most practical use for your trivets, you can also use them as a wall decoration or as a mini bulletin board.

Now mine are all ready to be auctioned off and taken home by a fellow Phi Mu lady!

I feel like this is not going to be the last of my wine cork crafts, I just love using wine corks as kitchen decor! I already have a wine cork bulletin board in my kitchen and a vase full of wine corks as a centerpiece on my dining room table. I really love wine :)