I’ve been saving wine corks for as long as I can remember. I can’t bring myself to throw them away – the natural ones – because I just think they’re cool. I even find myself picking bottles of wine based on which ones have real corks vs. synthetic. There’s something tactile and visceral about them that totally intrigues me, from the smell of the wine-soaked end to the elastic resistance I feel when I roll them about with my fingers, to the almost limitless variation of patterns and colors. And I’m amazed by the fact that cork comes from trees and start out living and organic.
Wine Cork Art Project
My cork collection has grown from a handful of them in a ziplock sandwich baggie to several large grocery bags full. I’ve been wanting to do something artistic with them for a while, but couldn’t figure out exactly what. I know I wanted an “impact piece” that would be big and grab guests attention but most of what I found searching Pinterest were either too complicated or too small.
Not sure what multiple bags of corks says about me!
Not too long ago, I was in a bookstore and ran across a wine cork jigsaw puzzle that had the look I was going for and I adapted the design and combined it with my float frame for a piece of contemporary wine art.
I’m in the middle of building 2 companion pieces, but way underestimated the amount of time this would take. It has gone from what I thought would be a weekend project to a couple month project as measured by an hour here and there on the weekends. But it’s definitely been a labor of love. You could finish this a lot faster than I did, but for me it turned into kind of a therapeutic project, a lot like working on a jigsaw puzzle, and I took my time putting it together.
Finding Wine Corks
While I had plenty of corks for this project but if you don’t have a stash, finding them isn’t all that hard. Like I mentioned above, I’m not bashful about asking for corks. If I’m at a restaurant that serves wine, I’ll usually ask the waiter if they have any they’d give me. You should see the looks I get at restaurants when I tell the waiter to leave the cork from the bottle at dinner and then ask if they have any more corks they want to get rid of. I’ll usually leave with at least a handful. One sommelier at high end restaurant known for their wine selection gave me a bag with about 75!
Same thing if I’m at a wine shop picking up a bottle. Wine shops often do wine tastings and have corks laying around. I’ll even ask my friends and it’s not uncommon to find folks who have a stash of corks saved that they have no idea what they want to do with but they didn’t want to throw them away.
Besides slumming for corks at restaurants and friends’ houses, you’ve got a handful of other options. Find them on Amazon.com as well as some of the big box craft stores and Bed, Bath & Beyond. But some of these have different sizes and styles
I recently ran across WidgetCo.com where you can buy used wine corks in bulk. While I haven’t used them yet since I’ve had enough corks to create my art pieces, I like that they have specific grades so you can get all natural wine corks without the synthetic ones mixed in.
You can also find them on Etsy from a variety of different sellers.
The Most Expensive Part of this Project
The biggest cost in this project (if I discount all the wine I bought over the years to accumulate my corks!) was the glue! Once I was into the 3rd tube of E6000 (I think I used 4 tubes in all), it occurred to me that this was the project supply I grossly underestimated! I wish they made this stuff in tubes to fit in a caulk gun. That would have made the project go a lot quicker!
You’re going to need a lot of E6000! But this stuff is the best.
I read lots of comments from smart crafty people that hot glue and super glue doesn’t work that well with corks, but I can tell you that this E6000 stuff is awesome. Get it at Home Depot or Walmart or just go ahead and have Amazon send you the 5 tubes (at least) your going to need.
Let’s Get On With The Project!
Rough Sketch of my Cork Art Project
I started out building a float frame (actually 2 of them) using 1×2″ boards to make a frame 20″ x 40″ and a 1/4″ sheet of plywood for the back. I stained the outside of the frame and painted the inside (including the back panel) black.
Cork Art Wood Supplies
This float frame is a little different from my previous post because I wanted the back panel to actually fit into the frame instead of being nailed to the back. I had 2 reasons for this. First, I wanted the frame to barely extend past the corks so it didn’t look so deep. If I nailed panel to the back of the frame, the face of the frame would be about 1/2″ deeper than the corks. Also, I didn’t want the frame to eventually pry away from the back although with nails and wood glue, this probably wouldn’t be a problem.
I used a table saw & one of my absolute favorite products, my Freud Dado Blade set, to make 1/4″ dados 1/4″ from the bottom of the frame pieces. Just a note about the Freud – I went through several cheap dado blade sets before I found this one and it has been the perfect balance of a very clean cut with exact measurements for a reasonable price.
Mitered corners of the float frame
Here’s my Freud blade setup on my table saw:
Here’s my Freud dado blade set up on my table saw.
I mitered the ends of the frame pieces at 45° angles. If you’re attempting this project or a similar variation and haven’t done miter joints before, I recommend checking out my video on setting up your miter saw. Often they are marked with angle measurements, but they may not be exact.
I joined the corners with both wood glue and nails. In this picture, I’m using an Irwin 45° clamp, but honestly I don’t really recommend it. It gets the job done, but I have to measure the angle with a carpenter’s square after I have it clamped it to make sure it’s a true 45° and inevitably I
have to adjust it a bit. I haven’t tried the Kreg clamp, but I will probably get one of these soon since every other Kreg product that I have is excellent!
Joining the mitered cornersHere’s a shot of my mitered corner after I’ve painted and stained.
I stained the outside of this project with an Early American MinWax stain and then applied a couple coats of clear satin Polycrylic.
Here’s the finished frame!
I wasn’t too worried about getting the back of the frame painted perfectly since it will be covered up with corks, but the sides that give the “float” look I did spend time on and made 2 coats of black.
The next part was to go ahead and lay out the corks in the frame (actually I also did this during the planning stage before I actually made the frame) to see exactly how many I was going to need. Notice the spacer wood on the sides, top and bottom. I kept those in place through the rest of the project to make sure the “float spacing” was uniform.
Lay out the corks to get the pattern you want. Also, use scrap wood for spacers to keep the float spaces uniform.
Now it’s time to start laying down the corks and gluing them in place. I did the rows one or two at a time and cut the end pieces to fit. Having all the corks in place (but not glued) when I started the gluing phase really helped to keep things going and keep the corks in order. Cutting the end pieces was nothing special, but I did do them one at a time and it’s important to use a really sharp razor knife and be super careful not to cut your fingers. I’m sure there’s a much more safety conscious way to do it!
Here’s where the project got long! Laying out the corks and gluing them down row by row instead of trying to glue the whole project at once had the benefit of making sure everything laid out nicely and since there’s so much variation in the sizes and width of the corks, I ended up shifting a lot of them around, especially as I got closer to the bottom of the picture. I’m sure you could do this faster, but as I mentioned above, it got to be kind of relaxing and therapeutic putting it together so I rather enjoyed the process of laying everything out. You’ll also notice, if you try to do this project, that if you glue more than a couple rows at a time, when you push the corks down to make sure they lay flat and squeeze together, they will tend to twist like gears in a machine or rollers on a conveyor. Doing a couple rows at a time makes it easier to ensure that the vineyard design stays facing the way you want it to.
Laying down the glue and corks row by row. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle!
My corks fit pretty snugly in this frame and each time I glued a series of rows, I put a piece of plywood on top and weighed it down to make sure the corks didn’t pop up which they had a tendency to want to do.
Weighing down the corks while the glue dries.
Here’s a shot of the first few rows cut & glued in place:
Here’s another shot after I glued everything down and cut the “end” corks to fit my pattern.
So it took me a long time to get all of the corks laid down, but I finally finished and I think the end result is pretty cool and will look great on the wall.
The Finished Product
Wine Corks on a float frame
All in all it took me 550 corks! Now, on to building the companion piece for it…
The Ultimate Float Frame Project Guide
If you like this project, check out my Ultimate Float Frame Project Guide, which you can purchase for $5. It’s a 26 page project guide that includes all the info from two posts and covers a standard canvas mount float frame as well as a mixed media/project mount float frame (like this cork art project). It also includes several helpful measurement charts and assembly diagrams to explain mounting canvases of different thicknesses. I’ve compiled it for easy printing and included a number of helpful pictures as well as project tips. Basically, if you want a handy printable version so you don’t have to get sawdust all over your computer, you might consider purchasing this download.
And finally, a bonus for you!
And lastly, here’s a bonus for you if you’ve managed to get to this point. Before you put your corks in the collection bag, be sure to amaze your friends and family with this silly wine cork trick:
