Now, don’t judge me .. I promise you this pile of corks is NOT the result of 2020 lockdown!! .. I have been collecting corks for a while now. If I’m honest, I don’t really know why. It started off with collecting them from special occasions. The idea was to write the dates and occasions on them and put them in a shadow box frame as a display. But as is the case, they made their way to the back of the cupboard.
Until now! This project was the perfect opportunity to use up some of them. Still leaving plenty of them to use for other cork related projects 🙂 It’s a simple and budget project to add some pumpkin autumn colour fun.
here’s what you need for your cork pumpkin picture
- Corks (shocker, I know 😉 ) – I used 7 of the larger “Prosecco” or “Champagne” type ones. You can use the smaller ones if you want but avoid the ‘plasticky’ ones as they are more difficult to cut.
- Acrylic paint – I used orange and white (not in the picture)
- Paint brush or sponge dabber
- Sharp knife
- Hot glue
- A picture frame
- Some dark scrapbook or craft paper
- Ribbon in a variety of colours and widths – I bought mine in The Range but check out local shops or of course online.
- A small stick from the garden
Getting started – making cork slices
Start by cutting your corks into cork slices of approximately 5 mm. For this picture I cut 19 of them in total.
Because of the size of the picture I created a row of 3, 4, 5, 4 and 3 corks (Check out the picture below to see what I’m talking about 🙂 ). If your picture frame is larger, you can create a larger pumpkin and increase each row by one, creating a row of 4, 5, 6, 5, 4. Are you still with me?
For the background I used an old bit of Halloween scrapbook paper that I still had in my craft stash. It’s got some “boo” words written on it, but because we’re covering it with the cork slices, just a black bit of card would do the job beautifully too! Or you can use black (blackboard) paint to paint the backing.
Next I painted the cork slices in different colours of orange. I started by painting 6 of them in the brightest orange colour. Next I added some white to the orange paint to make a slightly lighter orange and painted another 5 slices. Add more white to the paint mixture to paint the remaining ones. Of course doing this variation is totally up to you and you can paint all of them the same colour if you want. I just like the variety of the different colours.
catch me on facebook live!
If you want to see how I made this, you can catch the video of the Live I did below! (Don’t you just love how it catches you in a weird facial expression and you can’t change it?!)
When you’ve done painting all of them, grab your glue gun and start gluing them down. If you want to, of course you can arrange them first before you stick them down, just so you’re happy with the layout before heading for your glue. Start with the row of 3 at the bottom. Next glue down the row of 4 slices, then the row of 5 slices etc. You get the idea – you’re aiming for a layout like the picture I showed above .. here it is again:
Once all of them were glued down I added a stick from the garden. Because of the dark background and the fact that the background is dark, I dry brushed this slightly with some white paint. I just wanted a bit of contrast so you can see the stick rather than it disappear into the background.
And finally .. a messy bow. You can’t go wrong with a messy bow to finish off a project. And I went all out for this one creating a bow from 5 different colours of ribbon. And some raffia of course! I’m sure you’ve all seen me create a messy bow before? But, for those of you who are new to this blog – you can check out the post here which includes a “how to” video.
The results
I made this picture frame for our coffee tray. It’s just a small area in our kitchen where we keep some of our jars, sugar and cups to hand. Without accessories it’s pretty plain. But sooo easily jazzed up by adding some colourful accessories to bring in any new season. Here’s the “before”.
And here’s the “after” with the new frame, a pumpkin and some pinecones thrown in for good measure 🙂
Just a few simple things, but I love how it brings in the colours for autumn.
So there you go! A quick and budget project to add some fun to your kitchen. Or any other room. Start collecting those corks people!!
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