Wine Cork Table Topper

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. That was a sigh of relief. I delivered my first wedding cake today. I guess you could say it was a success. The bride and groom seemed very happy with it and when I went back to the reception to  help cut the cake and pick up my cake stand, the cake was still in one piece. However, there were some things that I was not happy with. BUT, I won't talk about all that now since I plan on doing a post about the cake itself. For now I want to show you something I made with all the corks Joe and I have been collecting for the past few years. A lot of wine was consumed for this craft. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it :)

Like I said, we've been saving all the corks from the wine we've bought over the last few years, I just didn't know what I was going to do with them. There are lots of wine cork craft ideas out there but none of them were really things I liked or needed. Then I saw this idea on a blog but there was no link to the source of who originally created it. I thought it was cool looking, and although it isn't exactly a useful item, I liked it and I had a ton of corks to use up!

All you need for this craft is a bunch of corks (I used about 65), a paper mache ball, and a hot glue gun. I guess you could use a Styrofoam ball but sometimes hot glue will melt Styrofoam and also the paper mache doesn't stand out as much when there are gaps between the corks. I bought the paper mache balls in the Christmas section of Hobby Lobby. They're actually ornaments that are meant to be painted or something, but they were missing the hanging hooks and loops, so I got them for 60% off instead of 40%.

When you're ready to start, just dab a little hot glue on the end of one cork then press it onto the ball. Hold it on there for a few seconds then continue with the remaining corks.  When the ball is covered, just pick off all the hot glue strings that will be EVERYWHERE :)

Right now this cork ball is just sitting on our kitchen table. I'd like to make a couple more, but I don't have enough corks for a whole other ball. Time to drink up! haha. I was thinking that I might cut some corks in half to make a ball that is a little smaller in diameter. Until then I'll just enjoy looking at this one and remembering the fun times that we had sharing these wines with friends and family!

In the next couple days I'll show you guys the wedding cake from today as well as some easy treats that I made tonight with leftover ingredients from the cake. This last week has been long and exhausting (mostly due to that cake) and I think next week will be pretty similar. So for now, I'm going to enjoy this weekend and I hope y'all do to!