‘Love me some corks!’ by thewoodenbee

Great for eco crafting: garland, key chains, coasters, trivets, bulletin boards, the list goes on… Colored corks make unique creations; from wreaths & ornaments, to vase fillers & wedding favors. Corks are a versatile eco-friendly craft supply!

Colored Wine Corks – Gr… TheWoodenBee $8.00	Red Wine Corks – eco cr… TheWoodenBee $7.00	25 SOLID Synthetic Wine… TheWoodenBee $4.25	Purple Wine Corks – eco… TheWoodenBee $5.00
Purple Wine Corks – eco… TheWoodenBee $7.00	Colored Wine Corks – OR… TheWoodenBee $8.00	Colored Wine Corks – De… TheWoodenBee $8.00	Upcycled Wine Corks, Lu… TheWoodenBee $4.00
Oak Wine Corks for eco … TheWoodenBee $1.75	Colored Wine Corks – TE… TheWoodenBee $8.00	Upcycled Wine Corks, Fu… TheWoodenBee $4.00	Colored Wine Corks – Gr… TheWoodenBee $7.00
20 Wood Grain Wine Cork… TheWoodenBee $4.00	Purple Wine Corks – lot… TheWoodenBee $5.00	Colored Wine Corks – OR… TheWoodenBee $8.00	Dyed Oak Wine Corks – u… TheWoodenBee $3.75

How-to Upcycled Scarves, made from old t-shirts

Before we get started, let’s talk t-shirt selection:

~ Different size shirts create different size scarves. I like the length of a scarf made from a men’s t-shirt. I can double it or wear it long. I think women’s t-shirts make good children’s scarves. I used the leg of a pair of sweatpants to make my toddler a scarf.

~ I recommend a solid t-shirt because the design is going to stretch and distort.

~ Always check sides of t-shirts for seams. It is possible to make a scarf from a shirt with two side seams, but for this look, it is better to select a t-shirt without side seams.

~ Since there is a stretching of the material, I think the thicker the t-shirt material the nicer the scarf.

~ The scarves really do keep you warm.  A white scarf is my favorite.  They can make any color jacket or shirt look new.

Okay, let’s get started…

This was a t-shirt my sis & I purchased to irritate our dad when we were young.

Lay the tube of your shirt flat on a surface and return the cut ends out. The sides of the shirt will be top and bottom. Start cutting lines/stripes in the shirt. Do not cut all the way through the shirt. You will want to leave at least one to three inches uncut on one side of the shirt tube.

The width of the cuts depends on the look of your scarf. The smaller the cuts, the more layers/strings your scarf will have, the wider you cuts the chunkier your scarf layers/strings.  I wouldn’t make cuts smaller than a half inch, or bigger than four inches. I like scarves with about two inch cuts. It is all a preference. You can make thin and thick cuts in the same scarf for a different look as well.

Once you have finished cutting, you need to stretch your scarf and your done!  I think the easiest way to do this is to run your arm through the uncut side of the shirt tube, and then just pull or stretch each cut strip to get your desired look. You can pull some harder or lighter than others for variations, or all with the same resistance. Just be sure to pull firm enough so the cuts disappear and the layers/strings look soft on the edges.

Simple, frugal, handmade, upcycled, and stylish. Love it! You can find more (some elaborate) t-shirt tutorials on my Pinterest board.

Happy Crafting!

With just days until Christmas we are all ready and super excited for our Christmas company to arrive!  I hope you have found time to craft this holiday season.  We wanted to share a few crafty things new and old.

Our neighbor didn’t want the above pictured snowman bags anymore, so we filled them with wine corks and hung them in the dining room for a little extra decorating!  I’ll have to add another line to my ever growing list of wine cork uses… stuffing.  Yes, leftover wine corks make great stuffing for decorations.  We could have stuffed them with more corks, and they would have been able to stand up themselves.  We decided to hang them for space.  Additionally, the corks were a great size for my two year to help stuff. She loves our new “noman” decorations.

This year, one blog subscriber made wine cork trees from last year’s craft post.

Another subscriber made our upcycle gift bows (and won our gift tag contest).

This month our holiday craft tutorials have been featured on this Florida blog:

Wine Cork Garland

Wine Cork Trees

Magnolia Wreaths

AND we are featured in an awesome little interview! Check out our answers on nash pop!

I hope you have found some time to create and share this busy holiday season.

Happy Crafting, Bee

Like last year, FREE eco-friendly gift wrap will be available upon request on all orders. Buyers just need to request the free gift wrap in the buyers note section of their order.   Free gift wrap offer is good November 26th through December 20th, 2011.   Here is what we are offering this year:

Eco-friendly, recycled brown wrapping paper handstamped with the words “One Earth.”  All gift wrap materials, including ribbons, gifts tags and bows, will be recycled and upcycled.  Our goal this year is to make use of the large craft supply collection we have accumulated.  You should see my boxes of ribbons!

Each gift wrapped order will vary because of the upcycled materials, but all will include our hand stamped recycled paper and upcycled paper bows.

I decided to make paper bows out of discarded toliet & paper towel rolls. I’ve had a big stash of them for awhile now so I wanted to use them up.  I’ve blogged about crafting with paper rolls here before and this time we just used the same concept, except we glued the paper roll pieces to each other instead of to the paper.  I can tie them up with ribbon or attach them to gift wrap now.

I had to make sure I considered shipping methods when deciding my eco-friendly gift wrap.  The flat bows will work great with shipping, and the recycle brown paper will help protect our wood creations.

Of course, our free gift wrap will include a gift tag!  I searched high and low for upcycled gift tag ideas.  I settled for this simple recycled christmas card gift tag.  I had a container of beautiful christmas cards that I had saved over the years.  I enjoyed punching out the cards so much that I punched too many!

So I decided to share the upcycled love and give some away. Just comment on this post and you could be selected to WIN 20 recycled gift tags! Tags are shown in above photo, along with many others.  Make sure your comment has an email address for contact.  Winner will be randomly selected by random.org at 10pm on Thursday December 1st, 2011.

It was important to me that our gift wrap help promote the fact that our wood is eco-friendly and we are an sustainable shop.

Look for our next blog post to have information on our Holiday Sales, especially our Cyber Monday coupon!  It’s our biggest deal of the year.  Until then please check out two of my upcycled gift wrap posts on Upcyclers for more upcycled gift wrapping ideas!

Upcycled Gift Wrapping Ideas

Upcycled Gift Bows & Tags Ideas

Happy Wrapping!

Bee

After many suggestions & encouragement from our customers & friends, we are going to start posting our crafting ideas on our blog as well!  So, here is our first holiday craft of the season!  Special thanks to my artist friend Jami J. for her inspiration!

Materials:
__paper craft cone ( 11” or 14” height)
__wine corks (either synthetic, oak or both)
__strand of Christmas lights (battery operated or plugin)
__mini tree topper star
__hot glue gun

First, decide what size cone you would like to use for your tree. The number of wine corks available to you can help determine the size. When using the smaller 11”cones, you will need about 50 wine corks per tree. The larger 14” cones will take at least 100 wine corks. Once you have determined the size, you have some options on the material of the cone.  We prefer the paper cone because it is the color of the wine corks, should you not cover every spec of surface with the wine corks.  We also like the paper cone because it is hollow & allows you to hide the battery box so the lit tree can be put anywhere!  The other cone material available is Styrofoam. Styrofoam cones allow you to easily pin the lights to the surface & are offered in much larger sizes should you have hundreds of corks to use. However, they are not as environmentally friendly as paper.

After, you have purchased your cone, put on your star topper & get ready for the lights.  You can use white lights or colored lights. Most battery operated light strands have only 10-12 lights per strand & I would only use them for the smallest of the paper craft cones. If you are using the 14” cone for your tree, around 30 lights would be best.  Remember to leave a little extra cord at the bottom, either to tuck under the cone or to reach the wall outlet.  Start your light strand at the top, evenly wrapping the lights on the cone.  With the paper cone you can use tape to hold the light strand in place as you wrap the lights (this also allows you to re-position them as you glue your corks if needed).  I like to leave a little extra give when wrapping, so that when I am gluing the corks on I can move the lights to fit into place perfectly.

When your glue gun is hot & ready, start applying your wine corks at the bottom of the cone. Make sure to glue them so that you still keep a nice level surface for the tree to sit on.  I start the corks at the bottom but then I jump to the top & then fill in the middle.  There is no pattern, put the corks everywhere & anywhere as you are covering the surface of the cone.  A second layer of wine corks will help cover any gaps or holes & the Christmas lights will stick out through the layered corks. I have even had to add a third layer to the base of the tree to help keep the tree shape.  You will have to hold the corks in place for 20-30 seconds sometimes, especially when you are gluing cork to cork.

If you would like to add a little extra jazz to your wine cork Christmas tree, cut acrylic paint with blending gel (or water) & paint your wine corks before starting! Cutting or diluting the paint allows the designs on the wine corks to still show but adds a little color to the cork. I chose to dye only some of my oak wine corks on this tree…green & red wine to add the perfect Christmas colors. You can paint synthetic corks but I would only recommend the oak.

Please feel free to email, thewoodenbee@gmail.com, with any questions (& send pictures of your wine cork tree creations)! One of the things I liked about this craft, is it allows you some play & creativity so each tree is unique.

Our next crafting blog will be a magnolia cone wreath! Our daughter is thrilled to help with this, since she’s been collecting the magnolia cones on our nature walks all year long!

Happy Crafting!

~Bee