Tag: letter

Christmas, Craft Projects, DIY GIFT GUIDE, Holiday, Wine Crafts

DIY GIFT GUIDE: Ribbon-Wrapped Cork Letters

Jessica Smith

Ribbon Wrapped Cork Letters

This summer I scored A TON of free wine corks for a winery in Hamburg, New York. Talk about a sweet score, huh? I saw all of the corks in a bucket and asked what they did with them. The woman working told me they threw them away! CRAZY! So I scooped up hundreds of corks to take home and am nowhere close to using them all.

When we were at the winery, my cousin asked me to make her daughter a wine cork letter for her room, so I did a variation of my wine cork “S” post.

Supplies:

  • Wine corks
  • Small wooden letter
  • Ribbon
  • Button
  • Tack
  • Hot glue

Steps:

  1. Space out the corks on the wooden letter.Cork E before
  2. Hot glue the corks straight to the wood.
  3. When the corks are all secure, place a glob of glue at the bottom of the letter to secure the ribbon.
  4. Place glue along the center of the corks, securing the ribbon as you go.
  5. When the ribbon is wrapped all the way around, fold the end under and secure with glue.
  6. Tie a bow out of the ribbon and pin it to the cork using a tack.
  7. Embellish bow with a button.

Cork E

Craft Projects

Yarn-Wrapped “S”

Jessica Smith

Good morning and happy Monday!

I showed you yesterday a quick and easy project my girlfriends and I made at our craft night on Saturday. Today, I’m sharing a not so quick and not so easy project that we tackled last weekend, too.

Inspired by many of the yarn- and twine-wrapped letters on Pinterest, Amy, Carrie and I set out to make pretty letters of our own. I made an “S,” Carrie an “H” and Amy a “T.” … we were one letter away from, well, use your imagination.

Anyway, instead of buying cardboard letters we chose to make our own to save some mulah. So, we destroyed several of Amy’s cereal boxes (her hubby was wondering why all of their cereal was in bags on the counter) and made letters of our own.

First, we traced letters onto the boxes, then cut out two of each letter.

Next, we cut thin strips of the cereal box and used them to create a 3D letter. We taped the thin strips all around on of the letters, before taping to top letter on top.

Mmmmm… Raisin Bran.

Once our letters were finished,  it was time to add our yarn and twine. I chose to wrap mine in a brown yarn with a little sparkle to it. Amy and Carrie wrapped theirs in twine. To start mine, I taped it onto the back and started wrapping. A couple of pieces of tape in, I realized two things. One: I needed hot glue, and two: I needed something to cover the tips of my “S.”

I cut out two small rectangles of fabric to glue on each tip of the letter, then continued wrapping and gluing yarn around and around and around. I used almost the entire ball of yarn — holy cow.

Hours later (yes, hours), I finally finished wrapping my letter. I think between the cardboard construction and the yarn wrapping, it took me about 2.5 hours.

Looking good, huh? Time to embellish. I whipped up a cute, fabric flower and a couple of leaves to glue to the letter.

Done!

Carrie had to go home before embellishing her flower, but Amy’s “T” got blinged out 🙂

So cute!? Just like her pup, Stover, who kept us company all night.

Once I got home from craft night I showed my finished product to the hubby — he was super impressed. Instead of hanging the letter up on a door or a wall, I put it on a shelf in our family room. It looks like it was meant to be there.

So what do you think? Will you be making a cereal box letter any time soon? I’d do it again!

Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts

Wine Cork Letter “S”

Jessica Smith

I’ve wanted to do another wine cork project for our bar area for a while, but wasn’t sure how I wanted to use the corks we’ve been saving. The hubs and I went over to our neighbors’ house last week for impromptu s’mores (awesome neighbors, right?) and I had total craft envy of the wine cork “E” Allie had made for their kitchen. I was also mad impressed by how many crafts she’d done recently and am still wondering why she doesn’t have a craft blog, too!? Anyway, I asked where she got her letter and resolved to make a wine cork “S” for our bar area. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I loved her pretty “E!”

After picking up my black “S” from Hobby Lobby, I sat down and tried to figure out just how I wanted to cover my letter. Allie sliced her corks in half horizontally so she could lay them flat against her letter. This used less corks and showed off the labels. I liked that effect a lot, but I didn’t want to lose the pretty wine-colored ends of some of my corks, so I glued mine vertically to my letter.

As I was planning out my “S,” I realized that I didn’t have corks for 1/3 of my letter, so I promptly destroyed a craft project I had done earlier that was just sitting in my craft room to get the remaining corks. Wouldn’t you know it, it was the perfect amount with not a cork to spare.

I began my “S” by gluing corks to both ends of the letter, choosing darker corks and champagne corks. I used E-6000 to glue the corks to the letter, choosing to go with that instead of hot glue with hopes that it will stick a tad bit better. We’ll se.

Once the end corks were on, I started gluing my corks to fill in the remainder of the “S.” I wanted to do a striped pattern at first — wine-stained corks, then non-stained corks — but opted for a random pattern instead.

I just love how pretty the purple end of a cork is — such a nice, rich color. Makes me thirsty 🙂

Not long after I started, my pretty wine cork “S” was complete! Man, we drink a lot of wine!

Thanks for the inspiration, Allie!