DIY: Wine Garland

 I love holiday decorating. However, I enjoy being able to incorporate touches of the season while keeping with my current style and color themes. My home has a very neutral palette, but I like to incorporate lots of patterns and textures to give it a richer, more interesting – yet comfortable feel.

I also love accents that mean something. Let me preface by saying my husband and I have been collecting wine corks for about six years. We keep all of our corks from parties, dinners, vacations, etc. – hence, the crazy large collection.

When we were in Ecuador a few years ago, we stayed in a hut/tree house at the Hakuna Matata in Tena (which on a side note – I highly recommend. We felt safe and the staff was fantastic.) They had cords of wine corks hanging down from the door frames (I’m assuming to keep out wildlife). We loved this idea, and ever since have been trying to figure out the best use of our saved wine corks.

Rustic Christmas style + tons of wine corks = wine cork garland.

Supplies

·         Bag of bead (I used neutral-colored wooden beads, but this would also be pretty with reds, golds of silvers)

·         Wine corks

·         String (I used thin hemp found at Joanne’s Fabrics)

·         Hot glue (optional)

Steps

1.       Cut a long piece of string about 2.5 times as long as you would like your final garland to be.

2.       Take one of your larger beads and string it so that it is in the center of the string. Double up the string. String a few more beads (depending on how many beads you want between your corks) on the double-stranded string. You will be working with the  doubled up string for the remainder of the project.

3.       When you are ready to tie on your first cork, place the cork inbetween the two strings and tie the string around the cork very tightly.

4.       Put the string back together as one strand and string on a few more beads.

5.       Separate the string into two strands and tie on another wine cork.

6.       Repeat until your garland is your preferred length.

7.       Tie the end tightly.

8.       If you would like to add extra security to the corks, put a small dab of hot glue on each cork to glue the cork and string together.