Showing posts with label ornaments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ornaments. Show all posts

April 28, 2012

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,


Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are. Todays Creative Blog vif187 all crafts Homemade Projects ~ Add Yours! {5/1}

October 17, 2011

Orange Juice! Really?

Donna from Funky Junk Interiors laid down a challenge to take something in your house, and push yourself to look and use it in a way that you never had before. Well, boy howdee, I've never run from a challenge and I am not aboot (she is from Canada ya' knoo!) to start but an orange juice can?!? I scare myself sometimes. I am sure Donna was referring to changing up decor items but what they hay, let's go with it, shall we?

Yes, I was making OJ for my favorite littlest human bean and I was about to recycle the lid when it hit me. Literally. It fell off the counter and as I was trying to catch it, I flipped it up and caught it with my face.
After I cleaned myself off, I was looking to throw the culprit into the recycling bin and I thought, great shape for a wine bottle tag. (kinda have wine on the brain lately and yes, my mind really does make these kind of weird associations on a split second basis). Wait, what better way to recycle than something that is dual purpose. Wine bottle tag that can then be later used as an ornament because with the amount of wine we have fermenting in the basement, we give A-Lot of wine as gifts during the holidays.

So here are some pics to help you take a mini-tour of how my brain works. Think rustic, hammered metal. I did.


Here is where you get your aggression out of your system

Keep hammerin'...........make it look handmade


use an awl to punch your holes

funny!  You're gonna want to make sure you do this on an OLD wood surface

my very organized box of beads.......notice at least the box IS labeled

wire ready to go

start sewin!




tryin' out my stylin' skills...
hmmm, that wine glass looked a bit fuller before I started this photo shoot


more stylin' pho-tos. not so much. Still need practice

another version

shoe polish works great to age things. Use husband's old sock to dab on, let dry a bit and dab with clean area. Instant aged, hammered metal. If you used husband's new sock... instant aged sock as well. Ask me how I know

added glue and glitter to the tree and 2 sweet beads to the twine for this beauty

I think these will also do well for the teacher gifts this year!
Happy Hammering and thanks Donna for the "push"


Always being renewed,


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Also linking to Funky Junk Interiors and

thrifty101

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