Put A Cork In It - Make Your Own Wine Cork Trivet

 I started this at my former job as Activity Director for an Adult Day Program.  We collected corks from local restaurants and did many things with them.  This is just one of several things you can do.  This one, doesn't take as many corks and can be done in just a couple hours.  You can ask others to save corks for you, or just  err...treat yourself a little more often over the next couple months!

Pick out a frame you like and/or one you can repurpose.  If you don't already have one, go to one of my favorite places - the Dollar Tree or Goodwill - and pick one out!  This frame I had lying around, it was broken otherwise, but perfect for this project.

 To make life easier, you will want to organize your corks by size and shape.  You will understand this better once you start forming your trivet.  *Note - try to stick with the wooden corks.  The plastic coated and colored ones are not glue gun friendly...you would have to sand those to get them to stick to each other.  Learned that one the hard way!

Using a utility knife, you can cut corks to the size you need.

 When starting the layout, try to group similar sizes together.  You can have a row going horizontal, then a row vertical and so on.  This is where you let your imagination go and either display the labels the same direction of each cork, or put them off center, or whatever you want to do.  The layout can be anything you want!  Get the glue gun turned on and have fun!

I have had this cork trivet for awhile.  I have put coffee mugs on it, tea pitchers, even used it for a pot or two.  Works excellent!