Reuse Leftover Wine Corks To DIY A Beautiful Flower Vase

For wine aficionados, emptying all those bottles comes with a secondary pleasure: the plethora of ways to repurpose wine corks around the house. One of our favorites is this easy DIY that transforms an ordinary vase and pile of leftover corks into a lovely, upcycled rustic vase. It's a simple project that consists of covering the vase with corks — which also means that it doesn't even have to be a traditional glass vessel. There are a variety of common household items you could reuse as a beautiful decorative vase, like mason jars, empty soup cans, or even an empty wine bottle. Bonus: two upcycle projects for the effort of one!

All you need for this project is a pile of corks, a hot glue gun, and your container. Depending on your design, you may need to cut your corks, which can be a bit tricky. The solution? Steam them. Set your corks in a steamer over boiling water for a couple of minutes and they should cut much more easily.  Ultimately, you're simply gluing corks to a vase or other container, but the creative magic happens in the layout.

The uncomplicated nature of this project actually makes the personalization the star. For the basic design, simply run a line of glue along the edge of the corks, and adhere them around the bottom edge of the vase. Then do the same thing with the next row up, offsetting the corks for a kind of brick pattern. Continue this pattern to the top edge of your container, and you've got your vase. Get creative by playing with the tapestry of colors that's inherently available in a collection of used corks. Perhaps use the darker ones on the bottom for an ombre effect or use lighter colored ones as border pieces around an interesting design.

Changing up the pattern will add some character, and the shape of your container can help guide you. For instance, if you have a square vase, arrange the corks in a stack horizontally, one on top of another, from base to rim on each side of the vase. Apply them vertically to cover the corners. Or, glue them all on vertically. Alternatively, gluing the corks with the ends attached to the vase or container (instead of the sides) will create a sort of starburst effect. 

Once all your corks are glued to the container, add a little whimsy with ornamentation like ribbon or twine wrapped and tied around the center. Glue buttons or beads to the bow to complete the look. Finally, fill the vase with flowers for a lovely display or use your cork-covered container as another fun way to repurpose vases around the house.