04 Aug 11 great ways to reuse wine corks!
About 20,000 tons of cork is produced each year. While not all of this is used for wine, 80% of the 20 billion bottles of wine produced each year are stopped with natural cork closures. That is a lot of corks!!
Cork makes the perfect stopper thanks to it’s composition, it is easily compressed upon insertion into a bottle and will expand to form a tight seal.
Cork is biodegradable, renewable, energy efficient, sustainable, and 100% natural. So rather than feeling guilty about throwing them in the bin and seeing them end up in a landfill. Take a look at some other cool ideas to keep and use up your wine corks.
Wall Art
By simply gluing your old corks on to a pre-made template, you can create something truly unique and also beautiful for your home, or even to give as a gift. Follow craftcuts.com step by step guide here.
A Cork Mirror
Using a similar principle to the wall art, you can create a very special looking mirror, the same technique would also work to spruce up an old picture frame too!
A phone/tablet support
Nowadays we use technology for everything, always to hand is a phone or tablet, for looking up recipes, talking to friends and family and even helping us in our work life. Why not make a handy support for your device of choice by following this step by step tutorial?
Cork place settings
Both elegant not to mention of course rather fitting, wine cork place settings are a very easy way to use up old corks.
For a simple setting, cut a slit across the top of the cork and slide in your guests name.
But why stop there? Add a little more imagination and there are a whole host of decorative details you could add to make something that little more special.
A Cork Bathmat
Give your bathroom a lift with this cork bathmat. Naturally porous, cork makes for the perfect material for craftynests eco-friendly little project.
Cork Key rings 
Let your imagination run wild here when designing and making your very own wine cork keyrings. The possibilities are endless for this easy, fun and inexpensive idea.
A Cork Curtain
If you drink a lot of canned drinks as well as wine then this is the project for you. Eco-friendly as well as practical a cork curtain will help protect your home from flies/bugs entering whilst allowing you to keep the door and/or windows open this Summer.
A Cork Memo Board
Practical and easy to make, this cork memo board tutorial by New House New Home, is a great way to get rid of old corks, around 60 of them to be a little more accurate.
A Children’s Game
As if the kids alone weren’t a good enough excuse to drink wine, now you have another. How about a cute game of 3 in a row? You can even get the kids involved in choosing and painting the little characters. A great family project, with the added bonus of having to drink at least 8 bottles of Champagne/Cava/Prosecco to do so, the sacrifices we make for the little angels!
And if you’re not a crafty person we still have a couple ideas for you to take care of those left over corks too:
Earphone holder
We all know how frustrating it can be pulling our earphones out of our bag to find they are tangled up or damaged in some way. You’re killing two birds with one stone then with these cork earphone holders. Simply push the end of the earphones into the cork, wrap them around and voila, safe and sound.
Compost
Corks chopped up finely are a very welcome addition to the compost heap, as they are of course bio-degradable.
Over 13 billion corks are popped each year, cork is a renewable, sustainable crop. Why not put some of those wine corks to good use and have some fun at the same time? You never know you might actually make something useful. And should you need to store your wine, once the cork is popped and tied up in your latest project, then look no further than the very highly-rated Avina Wine Accessories wine bottle stoppers and Premium Champagne Stoppers. Have fun!
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