CORK WREATH

Wow!  It's been awhile!  I've been full of good intentions, but just a little lazy lately.  Maybe not "lazy" lazy - just using the weekends to recover from long work weeks and not having the ambition to start some project at home.  Well, this weekend, I have a pile of stuff to do for work, but I had to do something fun (I'm an expert procrastinator!)

I've been looking for a cork project for quite awhile.  I needed something that would use up a lot of corks because we have a lot of them in the garage.  This particular project from savvydesignwest.com was perfect!!  Tiffany, the blogger, showed all the steps she took to find a way to make the wreath work (thank you Tiffany for saving us all a ton of time and frustration!!) and her directions made it easy to make the project my own.

I don't know how many corks I used but it was a lot.  I used an 18' extruded styrofoam wreath (the same size and type that I used for the ornament wreath - link here) and the steps were pretty much the same.

I started by inserting toothpicks into the corks.  I used pliers because I needed leverage to push those things in.  Take it slow and have lots of the sturdiest toothpicks you can find.  You'll end up breaking quite a few.   To keep my sanity I would do 10 at a time.  

Start with the inner circle.  I placed the corks even with the table and pushed them in so that they would be even on the back side of the wreath.

Once you finish the inside, do the outside in the same way.

Then, start filling it in.  I didn't want the corks looking too symmetrical, so I did a space at a time rather than circling around and around, but I guess it depends on the look you want.  I also liked the purple ends showing as well as the natural ones.  I had purchased some silk flowers, so I pulled them off the stems with some of the wire remaining and stuck them in, then working the corks around them.

When I finished the whole thing, I cut a bunch of corks in half because there were spots that seemed empty, but too small to stick in another whole cork.  I cut some in half and just hot glued them in.

I turned the wreath over and hot glued the edges of the corks on the inside and outside edges.

I wrapped a piece of wire around the styrofoam threading it between the corks to make a hanger.  I suppose I could have used thick floral ribbon for additional decoration, but I thought the flowers were just enough.

Great project, lots of fun, and pretty easy.  Now, back to Pinterest.....

Update:  The first day of my vacation was spent with a dear friend who wanted a cork wreath of her own.  Within a couple of hours she had created this amazing wreath.  The flowers she chose matched her style perfectly!  What a fun afternoon we had!  Oh and we needed just one more cork, so............ (wink)!!