They work great when I go fishin!! LMAO

but ummmmm we drink a lot more wine than that!!!!

That don't make you a wino, though!! Winos don't drink DOM!! LMAO

We use them for firestarters for our wood burning fireplaces; combined with candle "ends", they're perfect! (and yes there's lots of them... :-)

The green solution is to treat them as any other kitchen scrap and add to compost pile/green wastebin. Corks are made from the bark of a cork tree.

Years ago I was given a trivet made out of a bunch of corks cut in half longways.

Unless, I-chic, you're drinking wine in a box/screwcap stuff? (she asks in her snobbiest, UC Davis graduate, tone)

Yes, you can mulch them up and add to garden compost.

I never toss, always keep for garden mulch. Kiddos always remind me to save them for the veggies , like they are doing something very noble, lol.

(So another wine related question for those winos on GW . Do you like screw top bottles, even if they are high end? Or is the uncorking part of the wine culture that you love? If you give a gift of wine do you ever buy screw top?)

Screw top or cork isn't the deciding factor for me - it's the wine itself. I've had GREAT - expensive - wine with a screw top and cheap wine with a cork. I have to agree though that the "ceremony" of opening a bottle of wine is more appealing than simply screwing the cap open...

I have a local solution -- a woman in the area is lining the ceiling of a room in her house -- perhaps the kitchen or game room -- with corks. She has a mesh bag hanging at the recycling center in our small town. I just drop them off every now and then.

someone that posted a finished kitchen quite awhile back was saving them for a cork board or something
was it lowspark or skivino?
can't find the pictures now

I see a new backsplash idea coming -- or maybe flooring if you really save up a lot! LOL

They make a really cool cat toy if you poke a feather in one end.
Dawn T

[Disclaimer:]
They're also really hard on the ankles, should a person happen to step and roll on one of the aforementioned toys, in the middle of the night ...

I could probably floor a couple of homes..we have a lot LOL

Raising my nose a bit....screw top wines are becoming quite the thing miss blue :oP Many of our every day quaffing wines are screw top (could that be because I can't pull the cork from a bottle because of the broken wrist? hummm)

But we have a big collection...of corks and wine LOL I have a birdhouse made of wine corks, and a note board...hmmmm back splash...that would be easier than that freaking hand made tile...I may have to think about that....

Acountryfarm, screwcaps used to be found only on very cheap wines, while good wines would have corks; occasionally the cork would be bad and a wine would be "corked" (have a corky, or wood-in-a-bad-way, oxidized taste). Then California declared lead foil illegal, so now some reputable wineries have switched to screwcaps. The screwcap=low-quality-wine thing still lingers, but mostly in punchlines. You're gonna have to leave those kids behind on the farm and head into the Willamette Valley with your DH!

friends of ours used their corks for the countertop in their bar area. They created a herringbone pattern with the corks that was set in just the depth of the cork and then the whole thing is topped with glass. It looks really nice and is fitting since it is in their bar area.

Yes, bluekit I am well versed in wine, lol. It was more of a personal preference question. While many wines now do have screwcaps I was wondering how many of you liked that or not. It is hard for me as uncorking is so much of the ceremony that I love.
I have had my share of corked wines for sure and when such thing happens I find myself wishing it was a screwcap.
None the less, I still like the uncorking, just seems thats what should be done.

All in all its what's inside that counts, I agree, but still probably wouldn't give a wine gift with a screwtop.

Not at the farm yet, but do live in the Willamette Valley so have been to all our wonderful wineries.

Acountryfarm, sorry if I sounded condescending. I love good Pinot Noir and there is no better place for it than your area. I never cared much for the overblown restaurant sniff-the-cork ceremony so I'm not that bothered by the switch -- but again, it's the wine, not the packaging.

We have corks galore, probably over a thousand in bags in the attic. Can't seem to throw them out. I always planned to do a project, now I could do a whole house, except that they aren't all exactly the same size so they would need to be trimmed. A few years ago they began making some of them out of plastic and it is very hard to tell the difference. The plastic even picked up some of the red color from the wine. Anyway I wouldn't want to toss those into the compost pile. Many California wineries are switching to screw tops due to the lack of good cork. I'm happy with that. We do our best to keep them in business...a case a week is all we ask...

I personally don't care for the screw caps or the plastic corks. Yeah, its the wine itself that matters, and I've had some interesting wine in backpacker friendly packaging-- cans and cardboard cartons-- but at heart, I'm a traditionalist, and don't approve of change for its own sake.

I don't see cork as a big enviro issue, either: its a renewable resource. The cork oak bark is harvested dozens of times with no damage to the tree. I toss mine without remorse or apology.

Might be fun to use them whole as mulch on potted plants, though.

I think it would be fun and a definate conversation starter to put them in Apothecary jars in varying sizes. There are so many different ways to categorize them: favorite to least, $-$$$, OMG I don't remember doing that, baby #1, etc....

There's nothing better then seeing a little personality in someone's home to make you feel comfortable. I have 4 very large (could fill at least 10) Apothecary jars over flowing with soaps, shampoos and bath gels I've taken from hotel visits. It's so bad that DH knows not to come home from a business trip without my goodies.

I guess I have to take up gardening (ok we don't really get into that here...or I don't) and I'm too lazy to shred :oP

I do have a few jars...I may do a couple in the kitchen window, but there are still enough to build an igloo LOL Ok maybe I should do that...

I wonder if they insulate well? I could do the wine cellar walls in plexi and drop the corks in....

Oh and 13% of wines are corked due to umm cork...so while the romance is there...it's not the best way to bottle wine. :o) We hate to see 13% wasted!!!!

Notice I didn't ask what to do with left over wine LOL Cuz ummm I don't even know what that looks like!!!

I've seen them lined up like soldiers to create a chair rail in a basement rec room with a wet bar. I also don't know what leftover wine looks like either. Heading to the Fingerlakes Wine Festival next weekend and DH says we can't get separated again because last year when he found me I was buying by the case, not the bottle. LOL. I'll look for more creative solutions for you there.

I just started putting them in a giant apothecary jar in my family room. Actually hubby does because he is the wine drinker. I call it his "homage to cheap red wine".

laxsupermom - Are you my sister in law??? She's redoing her kitchen, has two lacrosse obsessed boys and goes to Keuka every summer!

Deee, small world. Maybe I'll meet her there. People are extra friendly when Bacchus gets involved:]

Wine cork trivets are the usual answer. My neighbor has given them as gifts for years. Many ways to do them:

This one was kind of cute--uses corkscrews to form trivet

A more typical framed trivet

Another, thicker framed kit

You get the idea.

For some reason, wine does not like me! So, I went straight to vodka and have never turned back.
Barb

I suggested one of my clients use them for a backsplash in the beverage area of her kitchen. She liked it so much that she also did a desk area and now uses that space as a corkboard where she pins up family photos and changes them out frequently. I think they brushed a matte or satin sealer of some kind on top. They also have a 600 bottle wine celler in their kitchen, so they still have plenty left!!

someone that posted a finished kitchen quite awhile back was saving them for a cork board or something
was it lowspark or skivino?

It was me! (lowspark)
My kitchen "theme" is grapes/wine and I did do a farily large corkboard. I'm sorry my pix are gone from the web. I originally had them on yahoo but when yahoo quit hosting I switched them to some other site and after about three months they deleted all my pictures. I have yet to get around to re-uploading all my pix.

After saving corks for all that time I simply cannot throw them away. So I still save them and WILL do something with them all sooner or later.

I think it would be fun and a definate conversation starter to put them in Apothecary jars in varying sizes.
In fact, I just recently did that! I found two really cute apothecary jars on sale for a great price and grabbed them. They're filled with corks now. One is on my kitchen counter in a corner, and the taller one is in my library atop a metal wine cabinet.

As for cork vs screw top, well I'll buy either but I MUCH prefer cork. I'm juat a traditionalist I guess. And I don't like the new rubber "corks". They're so much harder to open for one thing.

If you know any preschool or elementary teachers, they might be interested in using them for projects at school. I was in charge of the crafts for a Vacation Bible School once where one of the suggested crafts called for wine bottle corks. I think we were supposed to glue them together and make them into a tic-tac-toe board and then paint walnut shells to look like ladybugs for the playing pieces.

Creative teachers could come up with a whole host of ideas for the corks...

Patti

I made trivets, too. They are really useful, and easy to make!!!

Mldao- My mom always saves the shampoos and soaps from hotels. She brings her own shampoo & conditioner anyway (I do hair, so I have gotten her to be quite the product snob).

When she gets a good amount of them saved up, she brings them to the battered women's shelter because they are always in need of toiletries. She's gotten a bunch of us all doing it.

Psssh- She even hides them in her suitcase, so that when the maid comes they leave new ones everyday of the hotel visit!

Wine cork wreath. Use a straw wreath body. Attach the corks with a glue gun. It's a great-looking knobbly, irregular wreath. You can finish it with a big bow fashioned from wire-edged ribbon.

I always sorted the corks - any that I damaged with the corkscrew went into one pile. Put the corks with a pretty design in another pile. A few champagne corks or funky colored synthetic corks add textural interest - even a pretty "cage" and cap from a champagne cork.

I used the damaged corks to line the inside and outside edge of the straw body - put the glue on the damaged side of the cork.

After you have made a ring around the inside and outside perimeter of the straw body (alternate them up and down to make it come out even), you are ready to glue the face. You want it to look random, so apply a few generic looking corks to the four corners of the globe and go from there. Fill in turning the corks this way and that. Don't worry about blank spots - that's a good place to stick a champagne cork with the big end displayed. You want a bit more than 1 deep on the face for that random look. This gives you the opportunity to display special corks on top. If you annotate special corks with the date and occasion, this is the place to use them!

One last tip - don't sip wine and craft with a hot glue gun, especially if you have acrylic nails! Just trust me on that one, huh?

I have read that one of the reasons for the move to screw caps is that the quality of corks was deteriorating, or at least was inconsistent. Apparently one key reason is that so much cork bark is being stripped to use for cork flooring now, that the cork remaining for bottles isn't such good quality. Hence, in order to ensure the wine is protected, wineries are moving to screwcaps and plastic corks.
For example, many, many of the Australian wineries have moved from cork, partly because of inconsistent quality, but also because it's not exactly carbon-emission friendly to ship boatloads of cork from Portugal to Oz, when they can produce screwcaps at home, with a significantly smaller carbon footprint.

LOL this is a fun thread to read. I'd forgotten about the wreath idea..I saw a very pretty one once...that's definately a great idea for our entry door (we might as well proclaim to the neighborhood that we're drunks from the get go) :oP I could do them in different seasonal themes...wonderful (and thanks for the very good directions!!!) I was going to do one nice framed piece for our menu board (I'll buy a deep frame and fill with special corks for a wall we left blank for this reason). ANd the trivets aren't a bad idea either.

So no wine and acrylic nails and hot glue huh? Ok here's my hint...don't cut fabric with sharp scissors while drinking a lovely chilled white whine and sewing on the balcony above a bar in a hotel in Fairbanks ALaska....trust me on that :oP

Hi...new to this forum, but saw this thread and HAD to post! My FIL makes wine...and drinks alot of wine...so he saves the corks for me in a glass carboy and its pretty cool looking. Right now about 80% or the carboy is filled. I'm saving the corks to make a "cork board". I'm going to get a nice large frame of some sort and then arrange the corks in a patter of 2 vertical, then 2 horizontal, then 2 vertical....you get the idea. The next row would start with 2 horizontal and the pattern would continue.

I do really like the backsplash idea and we are putting in a bar area (in the crudest of terms) in our kitchen when we do the remod, so I think I'm going to take that idea and use it in that area. DH should like that idea!...thanks!!!

Oh....FIL drinks alot of red wines and I love how the ends of the corks in those bottles are stained with the wine (and smell good too!)

I save ours in a glass 'cookie' jar until I have enough to give my neighbor who makes them into trivets - he only gets the ones from real wine though - the ones from my home made stuff get re-cycled. (If I gave him all of them he'd know how much wine we really drink - scary)

One of our kinder teachers uses them as an estimation game. She puts them in an apothecary jar and the kids have to estimate how many are in there. (This is a game towards the end of the year.) The one with the closest guestimation, gets a special prize.

Another teacher uses them for art projects.

DonnaR/CA

cursivesailor: Your mom is collecting them to help others and is probably a very kind person. The same cannot be said for me. I am a hair product snob like you (neighbor buys me products at cost) so I don't even use them. I stuff them into my suitcase and have to stop myself when I see the housekeeping cart. Now it's a different story when I see my dermatologist. Their samples of lotions are fantastic. I'm a lotion freak so I always carry a purse the size of a beach bag to my appointments. They're thinking no wonder her skin looks awful she constantly at the beach but no I'm just a klepto.

I hate to put the Kabosh on the samples for battered women stuff, but our local shelter wants the larger sizes of shampoo and lotions (I guess they stay there (unfortunately)longer than a few days). Check with them first. I grab the ones from our travels to far off places and display them in our guest bathroom. The shampoo is from China in the 1990's. Saved more for the bottle, than the contents. The soap is from Saudi Arabia in the 80's. Nowadays, I just leave the soaps/shampoos in the Best Westerns.

Our local shelter does take them. I donate them regularly, especially the "NICE" ones from the Ritz etc. It's nice to send a treat off to someone in need. THe shelter also has larger format bottles in their long term rooms.

But I don't want to ruin the joy of being a klepto...so you just go ahead and steal them as you wish :oP (I personally only collect coffee from hotels as my emergency supply) :oP But I'd take it off a cart if it was a good brand heh heh

Igloo- I was searching for something (can't remember what now, becuase I found this fun thread...gee how often does that happen on GW......). Anyways, back to the point! I have two ideas for you, one is in my current very sad, very much falling aprt kitchen, I have one thing I actually like! And that is the chalkboard that I painted directly on the wall, and then "framed" with cover molding, and then glued corks onto the cove! They fit perfectly, it looks great, and you can use push pins on it to stick notes on there. Could be fun for the little guy too, since it frames a chalkboard.

My other idea which I have been saving for, seriously, 10 years or so, is to make knobs for cabinets or furniture out of champagne corks!! You just screw through the front (pre-drill)and attach by going through the wood!!

One other idea is to slice the corks and make little pads for the bottoms of furniture.

BTW, I ran out of room on the chalkboard a long time ago....

Another vote from a teacher to give them to your local school. We find uses for anything!

I once saw an article where the homeowners cut corks in half the long way then used them to trim an arched door to their wine cellar. It was a high-end house (obviously, if they had room for a cellar) and the cork trim looked amazing. Maybe I should frame our wine fridge that way! ;-)

bbtondo.....too funny!! Wine does not like me either. I had sort of an unfortunate experience in high school with some fine wine known affectionatly as "Mad Dog 20/20". Ever hear of it?? RUN from that stuff!! Anyway...to this day, I have a hard time with red wine. The smell of it brings back some rather unplesant memories of that night in high school. I do enjoy a good white wine though.

ccoombs1: Silly! You aren't supposed to drink RED Mad Dog. You are supposed to drink the orange peachy flavored stuff. That way, your brain never develops a bad association with red wine. Just orange wine!

Mmmmmm. Peachy Mad Dog. *chug chug chug*

:-)

francy

Oh I had my share of the boone's farm and Annie Greensprings too....but they never attacked me the way that mad dog did. Did they make a peachy mad dog? I only had Mad dog once, and never looked to see if it came in other flavors. That one flavor was quite enough, thank you.

I think wine corks make fine shimes. I found one (left from a vist of ds-inlaw) in my knife drawer. took a slice off and made a new shime so the drawer under the other counter works now. I did call and ask why corks were there first, as they do have pretty pic's on them.

Here you go, Igloo, this should keep you busy for a while :)

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: More great ideas for using wine corks