Wine Cork Serving Tray

I came across some bags of wine corks at the thrift store and it didn't matter that I didn't know what I was going to do with them, I had to have them. I decided that I would spice up an old serving tray that I had bought several months before for use in one of my son's school projects. To date this serving tray has been used, repainted, sold in a thrift store, served as the base of a Native American village diorama, and now it has returned to being a serving tray. Only with a little Locke Into Design flair.

The first thing I did was prep the surface for a new coat of paint. The dark brown just wasn't doing it for me so I lightly sanded the surface and wiped off the dust with a damp cloth. For the paint color I rummaged around in my left over Wall paint and found a light blue green color that was left over from my son's room. Most people would probably look at wine corks and think brown or burgundy but I wanted a color that was bright and fun that made the wine corks pop out rather than blend in.

After painting the sides of the tray I cut the corks in half lenghtwise and laid out my pattern in the bottom of the tray to make sure they all fit. The corks didn't quite fit all the way to the end of the tray as whole pieces so I cut some in half and staggered the rows so that I wouldn't end up with a whole row of half corks at one end.

To cut the corks in half lenghtwise I used a pair of pruning sheers and sniped about 1/4 of an inch through the cork at a time. I had to have some scissors handy too because the plastic around the synthetic corks didn't always want to cut all the way. After I filled the bottom of the tray with a layer of corks I lifted each one at a time and hot glued them to the bottom of the tray.

The finished tray has found a home on the ottoman next to my arm chair and it looks great. You may think that with the bumpiness of the corks things might fall over but they don't because being right next to each other they create a consistent surface.