Christmas Cork Decor

With the holiday season quickly approaching, I was struck with an early case of the Christmas Spirit. What I present to you here is a fun, simple, and creative idea involving the reusing of old corks to create a festive decorative piece that can help fill your own home with the Christmas feel.

Supplies

For this project you are going to need the following supplies:

• Old repurposed corks
• A sharp cutting tool (Preferably a knife)
• A cutting station (A cutting bard works perfectly)
• Hot Glue Gun + Glue
• A boiling pot
• Pens/Markers
• Any extra craft supplies (EX. Ribbon, Felt, Buttons, ect.)

Step 1: Preparing the Corks

The first step in our cork creation is actually going to begin in the kitchen. We need to fill a pot with hot water and place it on the stove in between medium and high heat. Submerge the corks into the water and wait for the water to come to a boil. This part of the process is not 100% necessary, but is GREATLY recommended as the boiling water makes the corks softer and easier to cut for our later needs.

Step 2: Straining

Once the water has come to a boil, strain the corks and water through a strainer or by any way easiest for you. The corks should be quite hot and slightly squishy. By squishy, I mean that the corks should very clearly show signs of softening compared to how they were pre-boiling.

Step 3: Cooling

Let the corks cool down for just a couple minutes. I've learned that if you were to cut the corks immediately after straining, they could snap extremely easily based on how soft they have gotten due to the boiling process.

Step 4: Cutting

The next step is the cutting process. In this instruct able I am going to creating three unique cork creatures for our "winter wonderland" design. The three creatures are going to be a Reindeer, a Snowman, and a mouse. To accomplish these designs we need a few basic shapes to work with. These shapes include cutting the corks into disks, in half, some at angles, and keep some in their basic form. Above is a picture of the shapes I will personably using for this design, but please feel more than free to insert your own creativity and ingenuity to come up with other designs and fun cork creatures.

Step 5: Reindeer Build

Begin by taking a full size cork and rotating it horizontally. Attach four legs onto this piece to form the legs of the Reindeer. I did this by using one cork and putting it vertically in half. I then took those two halves and cut them horizontally, splitting them into four equal size pieces. Use the hot glue gun to attach these o the base.

After this, use one of your disc shapes, preferably a slightly fatter one, to form the head. Using the hot glue once more to attach to one end of the reindeer. This is the basic process of creating the body for the Reindeer.

Step 6: Decorating the Reindeer

The decorating processes of each of our three cork creatures are going to be relatively similar to one another. I strongly advise that you take these point in the instructable to let your creativity do the work and come up with your own unique ways of decorating your Reindeer.

I personally decorated my reindeer by creating a Santa hat out of felt, puff balls, and hot glue. I found some pipe cleaners around my house that I used to create the antlers. I attached them to the Reindeer by using hot glue. Remember to draw on a pair of eyes using pen or maker and fastening a black or red nose to your Reindeer's face.

Step 7: Mouse Build

For the Mouse cork creature, I luckily had a few corks that perfectly formed the body and head in one piece. However, if you do not have this type of cork, you can simply cut one regular cork in half horizontally and attaching a disk to the top of one of the halves to create roughly the same shape.

Step 8: Decorating the Mice

Due to how easy these Mice are to make, I made a few to show the various ways of decorating them. First off, I drew on a pair of eyes and a nose. Don't forget the whiskers! Next, I fastened various neck ties around the three mice. I made two of them out of ribbon I had around my house and the third by attaching a key chain ornament to a piece of fine string. I also added ears to mice by gluing on a pair of cork discs onto each of the Mice. After this, you have completed your second cork creature.

Step 9: Snowman Build

Our third cork creature that we are going to making for our project today is a cork Snowman. Lets first begin by cutting a few corks into half horizontally. Then, take a quick moment to paint the pieces using white paint. let them dry for about 15 minutes, or until the paint dries enough to work with. Then glue two of the white corks on top of one another a draw, using marker, a few buttons onto his torso piece. While waiting for those pieces to dry, draw a face onto the third piece and attach an orange nose. I made my nose of some orange clay I had around my home.

Step 10: Decorating Snowman

Attach the two pieces together using hot glue and wait for it to dry. Using the same pipe cleaner I had for the Reindeer, affix two stick arms onto either side of the Snowman. All we're missing now is the classic black top hat. I made my hat out of two pieces of black felt. Its as simple as that. Glue this onto the top of your Snowman and you are done!

Step 11: Finishing Touches

You've successfully created three unique cork creatures. Now we have to set up the display. I made my display piece out of the lid of an old candle. You could do the same or use something else like a coaster for example. Use the hot glue gun to glue each of your three cork creatures onto the display. Add any other decorations you'd like. I personally added some greenery onto the ground using fake moss. This makes the display look more wooded and artsy. After you have made any unique changes, you have officially created your own Christmas Cork Décor piece. Thank you and have fun!