Easy DIY – How to Make a Champagne Cork Garland

I am always looking at creative ways to use my sparkling wine corks and I am not very crafty at all.  I want to be.  And I want to make all the fun sparkling wine cork crafts, but to be honest, they are usually a big fail.  

But the holiday season is approaching and I have a lot of corks so let’s make sparkling wine cork garland.  This is great to string on Christmas trees or to hang stockings as I did here.  

This is one way (that actually worked for me) and you might have a better way to create this Christmas garland, but if you’re not crafty either, trust me, you can do this!

Sparkling Wine Cork Garland

I clearly chose champagne cork garland because quite frankly those are the only corks I save.  And it would be strange if that wasn’t the case, wouldn’t it?  But you could easily do this with wine corks as well.

As I was picturing this to hang the stockings, I was also thinking this could make fun all year round decor by simply re-stringing it without the stockings.  So don’t be surprised if you see this bubbly cork garland appearing in pictures and videos all year round.

Trial and Error

As I said, I am not very crafty, so when I first asked to borrow my brother-in-laws drill, I asked for the drill with the smallest drill bit.  Now, thankfully they know me better than this and gave me all of the drill bits, because it certainly wasn’t the smallest that worked.

My next mistake was thinking this would work with sewing thread, so I borrowed my sister’s sewing kit.  And while it worked, meaning the corks did thread through just fine, the first time I lifted the whole thing, it broke in half and I had corks all over the floor.  Who knew the corks were so heavy?  (Remember, not crafty…LOL)

And we may have re-strung these several times before we got it right.  And there may or may not have been a super glue and hot glue incident on the wood floor.  

So like I said, if I can do this and have a quality end result, you can too!

Supplies

• Glass of bubbly, (or a bottle of wine), maybe a bubbly cocktail. (Trust me, this helps!) (Need some recommendations?)
• Champagne or wine corks (as many as you have)
• Drill
• 5/64 Drill bit
• Fishing line or wire (someone suggested baker’s twine, but I didn’t have any to try)
• Sewing needle
• Super glue or hot glue gun
• Command hooks
• Stockings (optional)

3 Easy Steps

Step 1:  Drill through the cork

Obviously through my trial and error, I also figured out how to drill through a cork.  And yes, that took a few tries to get it right.  I do try my best to show it in the video so you don’t make the same mistakes I did.  

The key to drilling through the cork is to hold the cork with your pointer finger and your thumb and that angle it slightly upward.  When you do this, it will drill straight through from the back of the cork to the front of the cork.  Also, don’t drill too close to the top of the cork since you need to drill at an angle.

A tip I learned the hard way, if you try to keep the cork straight up and down, you will surely have an uneven hole all the way through which then makes it harder to string through with the needle. 

Step 2:  Stringing the champagne cork garland

Now that is probably the hardest part.  Well that and trying to thread the needle, although I will say with the fishing line that was a bit easier and I am guessing with wire it would be even easier.  

You can string as you go which is what I did in the video simply because it just seemed easier at the time, but this method only worked for a plain cork garland without stockings.  

So, if you are looking to use this to hang stockings like I did, then just drill a whole bunch of sparkling wine corks first.  

To string the wine cork garland with stockings you want to lay out everything on a long table or counter top before to create your cork pattern.  I decided on 4 corks between every stocking, (after the 3 corks between failed).  So, once I had 4 corks between every stocking I started to string it together.  

Now the last debate was to string through the knit handle of the stocking as well or just let the dangle and put the string and wire through the big loop. I tried both ways and decided to just letting the stockings hang by the loop.  

​Step 3: Securing the garland

The final step to keep this together is to put a bit of glue on the outside hole of the very last cork and let it dry.  I tried to make sure these were right up next to each other with no room to spare, but I still have about 2 inches between the last 2 corks.  Unfortunately I don’t have a good tip to shorten this gap, but it didn’t bother me enough to restring this.  

Hanging Your Cork Garland

I was hopeful that I could hang this with packing tape or to somehow tie a not around a nail, but the packing tape was practically an instant fail and I had no nails nor could I knot the fishing line to try that method out.  

So, I bought some command hooks, the ones that hold 3 lbs.  Now that gap I just mentioned between the last two corks actually came in handy to hang this.  And I am happy to say that it is nice and secure.   

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