Holiday place card holders – a recycled wine cork craft
Short video showing all the corks up close: https://youtu.be/hVCm4YbmnnQ
Straight corks are from still wine and bulbous corks are from sparkling wine. If you are not a wine drinker, many liquor stores collect corks for recycling and are happy for you to have a handful if you ask nicely.
These are a variation on peg dolls or kokeshi. Blank peg dolls are also available from craft suppliers if you prefer a more polished look. I think this would work with toilet paper tubes as well, although the scale would be different of course.
The corks are decorated with acrylic paint, Sharpie markers, paper, and whatever else I had lying around.
- Wonder Woman – tiara is printed from an internet image
- Superman – chest shield is printed from an internet image
- C-3PO – eyes are 1/4” hand punch, chest mechanism is 1/2” circle and small decorative flower punch, “cables” are bits of cord
- Princess Leia – hair is 1/2” and 3/4” circle punches
- Minnie Mouse – ears are 3/4” circle punches, bow is printed from an internet image, necklace is seed beads
- Marge Simpson – necklace is seed beads, hair is aluminum foil
- Dorothy – hair is rick-rack and bottom of cork is coated in tiny red sequins
- Harry Potter – tie and house shield are paper, owl is a tiny punch
- Snowmen – googly eyes, air dry clay for carrot nose, 5 mm pom pom for coal buttons
- Reindeer – chenille stem (pipe cleaner) for antlers, 1/4” hand punch for eyes, 5 mm pom pom for nose
Paper clips are hot-glued to back to hold place cards.
I found it helpful to coat each cork with a coat of white acrylic paint before starting any decoration, and I’m sure gesso would also work. The cork just drinks paint otherwise. Natural and synthetic corks both work fine, although acrylic paint does tend to flake on some synthetic corks.
Papercraft Crystal 