Save your wine corks...

I know most of you have already seen these. But, for those of you who haven't, they are super easy to make and I think that the warm brown of the corks adds such warmth to a room. Not to mention the fact that it is useful. Beautiful, Useful, and Upcycled. Three wonderful things.:)

I made this cork board from wine corks (obviously) and a recyced frame. It was a bright silver that was too bright for me, so I toned it down with some stains and paint mixtures. I glued the wine corks to the original cardboard that was in the frame just using tacky glue.

 I got most of these corks from my wonderful brother n law Stuart. He's a wine distributor and he's good about saving them for me. Of course, they didn't all come from him!;)  Always save your wine corks! I have also gotten my favorite restaurants and wine bars to save their corks for me. They are usually more than happy to do it. Just make sure that you are faithful enough to drop by and remove them at least once a week or as often as they would like you to. I've done this also with bottle caps from this Mexican grocery store/restaurant that we used to frequent in Santa Rosa Beach. I have some really great bottle caps that I collected from there just by leaving a tin can labeled bottle caps near their bottle cap opener thingy.;)

I've heard that they can also be useful in the garden...I need to look into this and see what for. I'll get back to you on that. My good friend and permaculture expert, Kat Provincher says that the cork tree is seriously endangered. We may not always have wine corks in our wine bottles....So, hang on to those wine corks!<3