Making a wine-cork trivet

I’ve always noticed trivet kits on Amazon and thought, “How adorable!” But the prices are a little scary, especially when you really only get a wooden box. So when I saw that there was a sale on one, I jumped on it.

 

Using a kit is cheating, but I’m OK with that. The one I used it pictured above. Yes, if I was more adventurous, I would be all over that, but I don’t even have a saw to cut wood. So, there you go.

First step: If you are thinking about making a trivet, collect wine corks. If you have WAY MORE than you think you need, keep going. You’ll probably need more than that. Thankfully, my friends and I were at a restaurant that sells a lot of wine and my friend Maya asked them if we could have some of the corks. They totally came through and gave me an entire take-out box full. If it weren’t for them, I would probably still be trying to collect enough.

 

Second step: PLAN. Plan, plan, and then plan some more. Lay everything out and figure out what you are going to do. I could not get the design that was featured on the box to work for me at all, so just keep trying until you find something you like.

 

Third step: Cut the corks, as needed, to fill gaps. You’ll need ends, and slices of some for the vertical corks (if you decide to do a design similar to mine). This step was messier than expected.

 

Fourth step: Pull the corks back out from the frame. Start gluing it row by row. Some people use Elmer’s glue, and a little packet was included (a WAY TOO small packet), but I thought it would be too messy and you’d have to wait until it dried. I’m not very patient, so I used super glue. It worked great. And after a couple months, it’s still holding strong.

Fifth step: Let it set, and you are done! Go cook something hot and try it out!