How to Make Wine Cork Pumpkins

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Wine Cork Pumpkins are a super simple project that give you a great excuse to drink your favorite wine or, at the very least, it gives you something to do with all of those left over wine corks you have laying around!  Don’t drink wine?  No worries, you can buy corks too!

I made three of these Wine Cork Pumpkins in graduated sizes and then added some fall leaves, shredded paper, berries and a pine cone or two.

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Supplies

1.    CORKS–  you will need a total of 153 corks to make all three pumpkins

2.   LEAVES– I used 8 reddish/orange leaves and 6 greenish leaves

3.   BERRY SPRAYS– 10 sprigs cut from 3 sprays (2 red/orange-1/green)

4.   SMALL PINE CONES or ACORNS

5.   BROWN SHREDDED PAPER – 1 small bag

6.   ORANGE PAINT -chalk or acrylic (whatever your preference-chalk gives a flat finish and acrylic is a bit shinier)

7.   BROWN PAINT -for stem

8.   GLUE GUN

9.   HOT GLUE STICKS

10. PAINT BRUSH

Step 1.  Paint the Corks

First you need to paint the corks.  Originally I was only going to paint one end and half way up the cork, but I realized (when I was gluing them together) that the sides of the pumpkin would show a half painted cork.  Not good.  Sooo, I would suggest that you:  A) paint only the round end of the cork orange or, B) paint the entire cork, or C) paint nothing or D) paint all but one end which would allow you to have cork colored pumpkins from one side or orange when turned!  For this example I am going to pretend I did “D” (which in actuality I did only the corks that showed around the edges.)

 

Remember, I went back in and painted the outer perimeter of the corks the rest of the way.  I took a steak knife and cut the 3 corks that I was going to use for the stem on an angle.  Then paint them brown.  Allow to dry completely.

Step 2.  Gather Your Corks

I made this chart to make it easier for you to assemble your wine cork pumpkins.  It’s pretty straightforward.    Each Column contains the size of the pumpkin, how many corks in total for that pumpkin (for instance a small pumpkin requires 20 corks) and how many corks per row.

SMALL PUMPKIN – 20 CORKS	MEDIUM PUMPKIN – 45 CORKS	LARGE PUMPKIN – 86 CORKS
ROW  ONE – 3 CORKS	ROW ONE – 5 CORKS	ROW  ONE – 7 CORKS
ROW TWO – 4 CORKS	ROW TWO – 6 CORKS	ROW TWO – 8 CORKS
ROW THREE – 5 CORKS	ROW THREE – 7 CORKS	ROW THREE – 9 CORKS
ROW FOUR – 4 CORKS	ROW FOUR  – 8 CORKS	ROW FOUR – 10 CORKS
ROW FIVE – 3 CORKS	ROW FIVE – 7 CORKS	ROW FIVE – 11 CORKS
	ROW SIX – 6 CORKS	ROW SIX – 10 CORKS
	ROW SEVEN – 5 CORKS	ROW SEVEN – 9 CORKS
		ROW EIGHT – 8 CORKS
		ROW NINE – 7 CORKS
		ROW TEN – 6 CORKS

 Step 3.  Assemble the Pumpkins

Assemble the pumpkins!  Grab your glue gun and start gluing. Remember, I originally didn’t paint the entire sides of the cork and regretted it later.  I went back and painted all the visible areas of cork except for all of the back sides.  That way the front and sides were orange but, when turned around, the back was all unpainted cork–two different looks!

You can see in the first image that I generously applied glue on the side of the first cork and pressed the 2nd cork to it.  Then I filled in any voids with more glue.  Repeat the process for the first row.

The second image- I started with a cork in between the first and second corks on the bottom row.  Gluing this cork first makes it easier to place the cork to the left in place.  (not shown in image)

The third image shows two complete rows for the largest pumpkin.  Just follow the chart for each pumpkin and you should have no problem.

Step 4.  Decorate the Pumpkin

Leaf, paper shreds, berries and pine cones/acorns!

Now for the Stems, the three corks that you cut on an angle and painted brown are the stems for your pumpkins.  Glue one to the top of each of your pumpkins

You can see in the images above that there are red/orange maple leaves.  Also the Berry stems have brown tipped green leaves.  Choose two or three of the reddish/orange leaves and glue into place. around the stem.  I cut leaves off the berry stems and trimmed the bottom a little bit to make them shorter, then glued them in place.  Then I glued paper shreds.   Cut clusters of berries from the stems and glue on either side of the stem.  Then add your pine cone(s).

 

That’s it!  Three adorable Wine Cork Pumpkins to Welcome Fall!