Crafting, DIY Home Decor

Cork New York – Wine Cork Wall Art

Cork New York - Finished Product

I decided to make wine cork wall art because I needed a place to hide all the wine corks it’s hard to find inexpensive personal touches to decorate my home with.

Cost: $5 each (I already had frames and fabric)

Time: 2 hours

Materials: Contains affiliate links – anything you purchase may be used to purchase wine (for crafting, of course)

Cork New York - Materials

Step 1: Drink Up

Spilled Glass of Wine Corks
For me, this project was triggered by the surplus of wine corks we had lying around so I took care of step 1 ahead of time. I was able to complete New York State and get about halfway through Texas with corks we had stashed next to our microwave. Around El Paso, my crafting outpaced my drinking and I had to order more corks.

Ideally, you want to collect a wide variety of corks to add interest. If I were more organized I would have used New York State wines to make New York and Texas wines to make Texas.

Step 2: Select and outline a shape

I went with state shapes because the two states I’ve spent most of my life in happen to have aesthetically pleasing silhouettes. If you’re from Colorado or Wyoming you may need to get a little more creative.

Once I had a plan I printed outlines of each shape on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. If you want to do something larger you can always crop the image onto multiple pages or order an engineering print from staples for around $2.

Step 3: Cut Cork Board and Corks

Cutout Shape - Wine Cork Wall Art

I attached the printed image to the cork board with double sided tape and just started cutting around the outline with scissors so I had a piece of cork board the shape of NY.

Cut Corks - Wine Cork Wall Art
Then came the harder part. I used a serrated knife to cut each cork down the center long ways so it would lie flat. Most corks had a brand logo that repeated on both sides so I tried to cut them so that the entire logo was visible on each half. This was significantly more time consuming and strenuous than I anticipated. If you need to buy wine corks anyway I’d recommend buying Pre-Cut Wine Corks to spare yourself the effort and potential bloodshed. If you end up cutting the corks yourself, make sure you soak them overnight first so they’re a little easier to cut through.

Step 4: Attach Halved Corks to Cork Board

Cork Interlocking Pattern

I started in the middle and created an interlocking pattern of corks. After I laid out a handful of corks I used E6000 to stick the corks to the board. The hardest part was cutting the corks around the perimeter to line up with the cut cork board.

Cork Size Discrepancy
At this point, I realized that some corks are shorter than others. I used the shorter corks vertically and the longer ones horizontally and it ended up coming together pretty evenly.

Step 5: Glue Twine Around Outside Edges

Glue Twine Around the Outside

I used a hot glue gun to wrap twine around the outside twice. I could have skipped this step but it definitely made the whole thing look more finished (and less like something I made myself).

Step 6: Attach to Fabric and Frame

Hanging Cork New York
To frame the states I coated the back of the cork board with mod podge with some sporadic hot glue and stuck that onto some fabric. Once that dried I tucked the fabric around the glass that came with each frame the same way I would wrap a present or make a bed. I used the hot glue gun to glue the fabric to the back of the glass to keep it from shifting.

Completed Wine Cork State Wall Art

Completed and Hung Wine Cork Wall Art
Is anyone else’s OCD kicking in when they see that I hung TX to the north of NY?

Once I completed Texas and New York State wine cork wall art I hung them in our dining room. This project met all my art project requirements – it was quick, easy, cheap, hard to mess up and easy to fix when you do mess it up. Consequently, I was pretty happy with the results.

Credit: I got the idea for this craft from Etsy and there are many similar items available for purchase if you’d rather skip steps 2 through 6 and focus all of your energy on step 1.

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Wine cork wall art DIY tutorial. State shape art. #WineLovers #NewYork

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