It's no secret I like my wine. The problem with that though is, or was, the enormous cork collection I have accrued over the years. So, I decided to get creative and did a little research looking for ways to use old wine corks. Most of the ideas I found where a bit cheesy. Who's really gonna wear a pair of cork earrings? (No offense to those of you who do.)
That's when I found it. The Cork Bowling Alley (cause that's not cheesy). It was like a big ray of sunshine! Someone combined to of my favorite things, wine and bowling. Yes, I love bowling. Go ahead and laugh. It gets better; I even have my own ball with my name on it. Oh yeah!
I'm not big on art, but the cork bowling ball was pretty damn cool. I did a search for cork balls and found that they've actually become quit the rage since this Anthropology window display.
How cool are these? I immediately jumped on the crafty DIY bandwagon and was on my way to my very own cork ball.
What I used:
40 wine corks; cut in half (It's not necessary to cut corks in half, but obviously requires the use of less corks).
garden sheers for cutting corks; if you decide to do so.
4" Styrofoam ball
hot glue gun with several glue sticks
moss
glass of wine (optional)
How I used it:
After cutting my corks in half with the garden sheers (you could use a sharp knife, but I found the sheers worked much faster and were a lot easier), I simply started gluing them to the foam ball. I used a dot of glue on the cut end of the cork and pressed firmly to the ball for about 10 seconds. Following no particular pattern, other then keeping the corks as close together as possible, this took about an hour and a half.
At this point, you could totally leave the ball as is. I chose to use the moss to cover the small white crevices that showed between some of the corks by placing a small dot of the glue into the gaps and pushing in small pieces of moss. Be careful though; the glue is HOT! I figured this out the hard way. I used a toothpick in a couple spots to push the moss down into the hot glue. It did get a little messy.
Instead of the moss, you may want to try painting the Styrofoam ball first, like Nicole did here: http://glamorousgranola.blogspot.com/2011/08/pinterest-challenge-cork-balls.html Great idea!
I foresee many cork balls in my future. I think they'll be cute for hanging outside this summer or if anything, serve as a good conversation piece.
*Want your own cork ball without all the work? Get them at Etsys.
