Qorkz Crafts - Thanksgiving Edition

We, like many of you, are headed over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.  Since she is doing all the work for the feast, you might want to think about bringing a gift to the old dear.  Naturally, wine is an obvious choice, and we at Qorkz have a bunch of options for you to choose from.  But sometimes, Gram wants something a little more personal…. That reminds her of you when you were a tyke.

Luckily you have wine corks available to make these place card holders.


Place Card Holders

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Crafting Items Needed

Corks
Thanksgiving colored paper (I chose red, yellow, orange and brown)
A marker (I picked a gold sharpie) 
Glue
Some wire (I used jewelry making wire but a paperclip unwound would work as well) 
Oh, and an optional piece of equipment was a decorative hole punch


Instructions

I started by making the wire name card holder.  I bent the wire to make a long “U” shape.  

Then I folded the bottom of the “U” down toward the top. 

Next, I folded that bottom part up halfway. 

Now insert the wire base into a cork.

I decided to use the red, yellow, and orange papers to make the flourish on the back of the of the placeholder.  You can make circles, or hearts… anything your desire.  I used this pretty hole punch (similar here).  I then glued them on the back of the cork in a fan array. 

Next, I cut the brown paper into strips and wrote each dinner guest’s name on a strip for a name card. This can then insert the name card into the wire holder.  Now repeat until you have the number of place card holders you need.  Simple right?  

Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at Qorkzcru!

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Qorkz Crafts - Halloween Edition

Welcome to Qorkz Crafts! If you're a wine lover like us, then you end up with a lot of extra corks. Some of these are remembrances of things past to be treasured. But you can’t keep too many of them of around unless you are trying to become a hoarder.  And like us, you can only fill so many decorative vases. So what to do with your extras? How about wine crafts?


Halloween Pumpkin

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Crafting Items Needed 

To make a cute pumpkin you will need the following:

Twenty-five corks
A fabric leaf of some sort
Paint or markers
A hot glue gun and glue
Some twine or ribbon for a vine (if you want)
And a craft knife.


Instructions

First we colored our corks with a paint pen, but a sharpie works just as well.  When they are dry, start gluing them together.  Two groups of four corks, two groups of five corks and one group of six.  Since the corks are of different sizes make sure that the colored edges line up. After the glue dries you assemble the pumpkin. Glue together one of the layers of five atop a layer of four.  Try to center the layers as much as possible. Then add the layer of six upon atop that layer of five.  Then working backwards with a layer of five then the last layer of 4. 

At this point, you are almost done.  Finally, take that last cork and cut it at the jaunty angle of your choice. Glue first the leaf, then the jaunty cork to center of the top layer.  Voilà!  You have a cork pumpkin.

At that point unplug the hot glue gun because if you are like us, you will burn yourself with it.  And have a glass of wine! You deserve it, you crafty thing, you!