Monthly DIY Challenge: Wine Cork Bar Sign

Say what? It’s time for the Monthly DIY challenge again! Get excited! In case you’re new, here’s the skinny: On the 2nd Wednesday of every month, me and my fantasticawesomeamazing blogger friends make something based on a common theme or material. The end projects are SO creative and gorgeous! So far we’ve done Michaels crates, pumpkins, wood slices, clear ornaments, organizational solutions,  plumbing pieces,  the dollar store,  trash to treasure, wood scraps, paint, fabric, pegboard, and balsa wood/craft plywood. This month’s theme is cork! All of us came up with some pretty awesome uses, so be sure to stick around to the end of the post to see everyone else’s AMAZING projects!

So I’m gonna be honest here, we drink a fair amount of wine in our household. One of hubby’s and my favorite date nights in is to grab a bottle of wine, some fancy cheeses (we are part of a cheese of the month club!) and catch up on our fave TV shows (currently Doctor Who, Grimm, and The Blacklist). Nothing is as cozy as enjoying a glass of wine, some good cheeses, and snuggling with my love! As a result we have a looootttt of wine corks lying around. I mean they are just too cute, not to mention useful, to throw away! So I’ve been collecting them and up until now most of them have been decorating candle jars/sconces around the house. I decided to use a couple to make a fun Bar Sign to go above our bar cart so everyone knows where the party’s at!

Wine Cork Bar Sign Materials

• B A R letters – these can be wood like mine or even cardboard!
• Wine corks
• Craft knife or even a serrated kitchen knife will do + cutting mat
• Hot glue gun
• Kraft paper

Step 1

Slice your wine corks into thin sections. Don’t worry too much about making them all even – I kind of like the varied height look! I found that Chateau Ste. Michelle corks cut the easiest (they also make the best sweet riesling in the WORLD). If you find your corks are crumbling, I read about a trick where you steam them over a pot of boiling water for a minute or so. Make sure your knife is super sharp! I got about 4-5 slices from each cork.

Step 2

Then simply glue your cork slices to your letters! The white of my letters was showing through too much when I layed out my corks, so I decided to first glue down some brown craft paper so any gaps would be less obvious. You could also do this with a sheet of flat cork material! I decided to do 2 layers of cork over each of my letters making a different height layered look.

This was a super easy project! The most time consuming part was cutting the corks down to size. Everything else was a breeze! Such a great way to use up old corks that had been pilling up around the house. It’s cool to know that each of these bottle corks hold a memory of cozy nights with my love or parties with friends!

I hung up the letters over our little bar car for a fun little drink mixing station. I think they turned out great!

This wine cork bar sign is even a great place to leave little memos, like cocktail recipes or drink tags you want to save. Just use a pushpin and away you go!

Now that you’ve seen how I used cork for this month’s DIY challenge, be sure to check out all the other great projects from my friends! Just click on a photo below to be magically transported to each challenge post 🙂

What’s your favorite kind of wine?