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So part of being a home owner, i’ve learned, is being frugal. Finding uses and inspiration in ordinary things and making them beautiful for minimal cost. Also, being as green and earth friendly as humanly possible. I found inspiration for this little centerpiece in my new junk drawer, of all places. I have been shuffling around these wine corks forEVER with no real idea as to why I had been saving them all and then it dawned on me. CENTERPIECE!

Step One: Drink wine. Lots and Lots of wine drinking is CRITICAL to the success of this project. You need between 60 – 75 wine corks for this to look pretty. I suppose you could always fill the bottom with sand and THEN use the corks, but collecting 75 wine corks is half the fun!

Step Two: Sit back and take in your accomplishments. Pour a glass of wine. Collecting all those wine corks is HARD work! Sip glass of wine and rummage around for a pillar candle. You know it’s in a box SOMEWHERE, you packed it so it has to be here.

Step Three: Find white pillar candle.

Step Four: Realize your photography SUCKS right now. Chalk it up to the wine and being exhausted. Mostly the wine though. Decide your readers won’t really care that the picutres suck, press on!

Step Five: Realize the hurricane that you had INTENDED to use for this project has gotten a crack in it during the move. Shit. Run to Michaels. Search for the PERFECT hurricane and settle for a cheap cyllander vase thing. Spend an extra $50 on leaf garland, post it notes, rubber stamps and adorable cupcake papers.

Step Six: Come home, unpack goodies, pour wine. Fall in love with the simple glass hurricane thing you bought for $6! It has so many possibilities!

Step Seven: Place pillar candle in hurricane thing FIRST. This is important. Try and make sure it’s centered or else your centerpiece will look all wonky and it will drive you absolutely insane and you will have to dump it all out and start over again. (Which wouldn’t be an entirely bad thing. MORE WINE!)

Step Eight: Make sure to hold the candle and sort of sprinkle the corks around it trying to keep it even on all sides (or else your centerpiece will look all wonky and you’ll be forced to dump it out and start all over again. You’ll of course need a glass of wine to cope with this disaster.)

Step Nine: Take a minute and be impressed with yourself. Admire your work and your thriftiness. Such beauty for a mere $6!

Step Ten: Actually go put it on your dining room table. Admire your work and decide your a genius for thinking of something to do with all of those wine corks!

Step Eleven: Drink another glass of wine. You need to build up your cork collection again!

What are some of your favorite decorating ideas/tricks that you can do on the cheap?

Oooo cute and easy! The kind of Home Projects i like!

Julie Q’s last blog post..Cos I Don’t Shine if You Don’t Shine

You are so cute. And the thought of wine right now is painful.

And that first photo of the corks is GORGEOUS.

haha love it!

Tres cute my dear!

Cute!! We have a framed display of beer coasters that we collected from various bars/beer festivals. It hangs in our kitchen and everyone loves it! And obvs, the coasters were free… or the price of a beer!

Lacey Bean’s last blog post..Blogging Bits and Baubles

What a great idea!!

Megan’s last blog post..Loki ? 6 months

Awesome!! I love it when people reuse things!

I have almost that exact same thing in our living room! Great minds (well and great wine drinkers, obviously!)
A great way to get wine corks at the beginning is to tell other people that you’re collecting them. When you’ve got minions out there drinking wine as well, you can collect them fast! My mother in law has a drawer she puts them in for me, and I just pick them up when I come over.

Oh yes, and any time I go to open a wine and realize it’s a screw top I’m so pissed! duuuude I need those corks!

Steph’s last blog post..Back to School

That’s a great idea, especially because I am an avid wine drinker!

The walls of my apartment are white, so in my attempt to be frugal, I take pictures of the THINGS in my apartment from odd/cool angles, process them in Lightroom and put them in frames to hang on my wall. They actually turned out pretty neat and it’s cheap! Target prints digital pictures for 10 cents!

Emily’s last blog post..My Dreams Are Foreshadow

Looks great on the kitchen table =) I honestly can’t think of any crafty projects I’m working on lately that are money savers and cute. Pathetic. I must go home and remedy this immediately, preferably with wine in hand!

Nora’s last blog post..LOVE

We keep funny shaped wine bottles and refill them with flavored olive oils. We also keep our corks and use them in our tree’s planter inside the house.

barbetti’s last blog post..The Blathering Experience

Cute! Love this idea!

Rachael’s last blog post..Duvet or not Duvet That is the Question.

I am totally doing this! I have a giant bag full of wine corks that I need to put to good use!

Erin’s last blog post..Who Likes Turkey?

Aww, how fun! I love this!

We kept all of our beer bottle tops (and any liquor bottles we were able to swing) between our freshman, sophomore and junior years of college. We taped/glued them to a wall in our house senior year and continued to collect them. Buy the end of the year, the whole living room and half the kitchen was covered in them!

Girl’s last blog post..Sunday Smiles

You know, at SOME POINT I’m going to start decorating this white apartment and I’m going to start doing handcrafts! Haha

Andy’s last blog post..(8) I have a life, though it refuses to shine (8)

Adorable! I never would have thought to do that with wine corks!

And your photography does not suck lady. We all have bad days!

Huh, I just realized that I have nothing to decorate. Except maybe the outside of my tiny little suitcase, haha?

nicoleantoinette’s last blog post..how to deal with heartbreak

That is so pretty! My cats will be a little bummed that they don’t get the corks anymore, but my table will be prettier. Thanks so much for the great idea, I’d love to link to this if you didn’t mind.

Love the first photo

omigod! I HAVE that hurricane glass thing EXACTLY the same…and NOw I have something to do with my wine corks

i love it.

i am currently saving up to 10048 corks to use to top a coffee table i inherited from my parents old living room that has been scratched severely. i want to top it with corks and put a piece of glass on top. so far i have 341 or so. thats a rough guessitimate. it helps to work at a restaurant that goes through over 100 bottles a week. now if only there were no such thing as screw top wine

bodelou’s last blog post..gifted/weekly catch up

wait i totally meant 1048, not 10048

bodelou’s last blog post..gifted/weekly catch up

Oh, I absolutely loooooove this idea! It’s super cute and simple. Plus, it gives me another reason to enjoy my wine

Caitlin’s last blog post..Hi, I’m Caitlin and I’m drowning.

What a great idea! And easy enough to do after drinking a few glasses of wine! I’ve made several wine cork wreaths with my corks, and just did some place card holders for my niece’s wedding. They’re on my blog. Check it out!

Jan’s last blog post..Photo Blocks

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i'm rachel. a twenty something jersey girl with one crazy life. matt is the boy that has my heart. it took going to hell & back again for me to figure that out. i feel most at home with my toes in the sand and the sun shining on my face. this is my story.

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