Don't Throw Away Old Wine Corks. Here's How To Make Them Useful In Your Kitchen
When it comes to upgrading your kitchen space with fun decor, staying within the confines of a budget can feel impossible. However, there are a few creative ways to utilize materials you may already have on hand. Next to using the simple Dollar Tree hack for extra storage on your kitchen counters, try decorating your kitchen space with one leftover byproduct: wine corks.
Cork's rustic appearance and neutral color visually melds with most kitchen spaces. Wine corks can also be cut down or manipulated to fit individual projects. That being said, if you're in the market to upgrade your kitchen island or breakfast bar, skip the wallpaper and try making your own unique design with old wine corks.
In the video below, two women upgrade their breakfast bar by cutting wine corks in half and then hot gluing them directly to the flat face of their breakfast nook. To copy this specific design or make an entirely new design for your own individual space, first map out your vision on paper and do some math to ensure you have enough corks for the job. Use a handy tool like the TOWOT Multi-Angle Miter Shears from Amazon to cut each cork vertically with ease. Instead of directly gluing your design to the interior walls of your home, you can also glue the corks to a cork board frame that can be mounted onto your wall with a removable adhesive like Hasaky's Heavy Duty Mounting Tape.
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More fun ways to repurpose wine corks in your kitchen
Beyond using your wine cork stash to make a visually appealing wall design, there are other ways you can put this natural, porous material to good use. Garner inspiration from Dolly Parton's kitchen accents that don't break the bank and make your own decorative utensil holder. Create a straight-edge holder with plywood or use a recyclable metal can tall enough to accommodate your utensils. Then, use hot glue to cover the outside of the holder in your own special cork design. Use whole corks or cut rounds from the base of each cork. A design made with rounds tinged with different shades of red wine can make this DIY cooking utensil container more visually appealing.
You can also use wine corks to stylishly protect your kitchen countertops. Since cork is heat-resistant, wine corks make excellent hot pads with the use of wooden picture frames. From each frame, simply exchange the interior sheet of glass for a thin, flat piece of cork board. Then, all you need to do is use wood glue to attach the wine corks to the cork board directly — no cutting necessary.
You can follow a similar technique to make coasters as well. For each coaster, use a glue gun to glue eight corks together at different angles to create even squares. Whichever project you decide to make, consider steaming or boiling your wine corks before cutting them. This softens the material and makes them easier to cut with precision.