Wine Cork Ornament

We made homemade sausage today! What does that have to do with wine or corks or Christmas, for that matter? My husband broke open the 2011 homemade Zinfandel we made in the fall to sip while we worked side by side and we had a few......corks, that is, laying around.

I hate to throw the corks away because we go through so many of them and I haven't really seen a good cork craft that I like enough to start saving them up.

I did come up with an idea you can do with just one cork and about 30 minutes. This also came out of the fact that my kids wanted to watch a movie tonight so this was an added bonus in that I could bead and watch with them at the same time. A twofer!

I have also been practicing my photography skills, and I hope you think they are better then what I usually put up.  I took them in scary mode..... manual!

I used to think that my camera was just sucky, come to find out, it was just me who was sucky! User error! My camera forgave me and took the photos below without reservation or a grudge. How come more people can't be like that? But I digress.....

I know that most people use Christmas ornaments to remember events and vacations, we are no different. But we have been making wine for years now and I can't believe  how slow I am in making something to commemorate it.

So here is how I turned a wine cork into a wine cork Christmas ornament.

Took some corks...

Poked a wire through top and bottom....

Added a bead topper using 28 gauge wire....

Made a beaded grape "charm" to hang from the bottom...

At least I hope these look like grapes..... I have absolutely no idea how to describe how I made this.

But I am gonna try because my loyal readers deserve somethin' since you took the time to stop by! 

So in case you want to try this yourself.....

I took a 10 inch length of 28 gauge wire and threaded one bead onto it and twisted it to anchor the bead.

Then I threaded purplish/ blue beads on both of the wires, sometimes one at a time, sometimes two or three, and just kept bending the wires to simulate the shape of a bunch of grapes. You will notice that I threw in a few pink beads so it didn't look too uniform.

 Once I got it to how I like it, I looped a few green beads for the leaf,  2 amber for the stem and then made a loop at the top.

I think I like it!

I think the first photo of the two corks is the best.  I was shooting the photos of the hanging ornament as the light was seriously fading but I think those turned out okay. Not great but on their way.

In my quest to figure out why my photos looked so poor once I uploaded them into Blogger, I came upon Aimee at It's Overflowing and her photography series.  It is ......Incredible! I am only through aperture, ISO, and shutter speed but wow, what a wealth of information. 

I came up with a great solution on how to keep all that ISO, aperture, shutter speed stuff straight. But you'll have to come back in a few days to see what it is! 

And if you come back tomorrow and you can see some more practice shots of the sausage making process. Stimulating, I know.

So what do you think of the photos? Am I making progress?

I bet if you drink some wine while you read this, my photos will look phenomenal!!!

Always being renewed,

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