ALL ABOUT CORKS

I can’t believe that I am writing this book, if only because I originally thought that a how-to book on cork art already existed.  I was quite surprised and excited to discover that my book on the subject would in fact be the first.

The story of how this book came about started during this past holiday season.  I was an actress/bartender and I really didn’t have that much money to buy gifts with.   So I thought to myself, “This holiday season I am going to make presents for my friends and family.” 

I was so excited.  I decide that I was going to make them out of corks.  Everyone knows I love wine.  But I needed corks.  Lots of them.  Although I always saved corks and knew so many others who did as well, I still didn’t have enough. 

As a bartender, I began saving even more corks.  I was working at a Belgium bar, and half the beers had corks in the bottles!  I was saving those too.  “You never know,” I thought.  I even had my co-workers in on it as well.  Every night, they would throw more and more corks into my “Save the Corks” bucket. 

Every now and again, I would get a verbal comment along with the corks along the lines of, “Well here’s another cork for ya.  What are you going to do with them?”  My response was straightforward.  “I’m going to make presents for the holidays, of course.”

People made cool stuff out of corks all the time, Right?  At least that’s what I thought.

I ran to my nearest craft store in search of the best “How-To” book on cork art and crafts.  I was more than shocked when the woman at Michael’s craft store had no idea what I was talking about.  I really had thought building things with corks was a common thing.  Looks like I was mistaken.

I went back to their bookshelf to look again for myself.  I found “How-To” books on every subject from knitting to scrap booking, but nothing even close to what I was looking for and needed desperately: a book on how to turn corks into gifts.

I went home and looked at this giant bag of corks that I had collected.  Time was running out and I had to make quite a few presents with absolutely nothing to guide me.  I frantically started looking online in hopes of finding something—anything—that could provide me a clue. 

I then saw a light at the end of the tunnel.  I came across one idea here; another there.  First, a horse.  I thought, “Cool, I can make that,” and then I came across a birdhouse.  To be honest, I thought the birdhouse was a little out of my league, but I had no other choice: I was not going over to anyone’s apartment empty handed. 

I started with a horse.  It turned into a reindeer. 

I sliced up corks and glued them to glass candleholders making a Polka dotted votive candleholder.  

Those Belgian beer corks I had been saving ended up becoming the cutest little bears. 

I ended up bringing my reindeer and Belgian bears into work to show everyone why I was saving all the corks.  They loved them.  My own imagination took over and soon I was on a roll. 

My coworkers began placing orders and the people I have been serving drinks to for months now wanted to buy them.  In fact, I started to get a little nervous because creating so many cork projects would take a lot of time.  I starting worrying to myself, “Where am I going to find the time?” 

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