Twelve Days of Christmas 2016 - Day Ten

Day 10 is here and so is my hubby's birthday! He's getting soooooo old. Wait, we're  the same age, so that means I'm getting old, too! Dang it! I was hoping to stay young forever. Haha

Well. today we have for your crafting enjoyment......wine cork trees! Now, I'm a Mormon and I don't drink wine, so you're probably asking yourself right about now, "How does a non-drinker Mormon have so may wine corks? Ha! I have about 200 of them! My hubby and I were at a yard sale last year in Elko, and there was this HUGE bag of wine corks. He picked it up and showed it to me and asked me if I wanted them. Well, first I had to lift my jaw off the ground because he was actually offering to add to my craft stash, but then I blurted out a big YES before he changed his mind. It was a steal at $5 but now I have all these blasted wine corks! This will be the first of many wine cork projects.

I saw some wine cork trees on Pinterest a while back and decided I wanted to try one. My problem was that because I'm a Mormon, and other Mormons come into my home and I don't want them to think I'm a closet alcoholic, I have to cover the trademarks. So I got out some green paper, measured the wine corks and cut strips of paper that size.

Then I curled them just as you would curling ribbon, using a dowel instead of scissors and being careful not to tear them. 

When I had enough strips cut and curled, I got out my handy-dandy Tacky glue....

...and glued the green paper around all the corks. Well, not all of them, obviously, because some of then have holly paper. ;)  Then I put a stripe of glue where the paper overlaps, and glued the corks together to form tree shapes.

After they were glued into trees, I glued ribbons around them. Notice that on one tree I started on the top and on the other I started on the bottom.

This one will have a bow at the top, so I centered the ribbon at the bottom of the tree and only put glue where the ribbon and tree would touch. The excess on the ends will make the bow.

This one will have a star on top instead of a bow, so I centered the ribbon at the top of the tree, and it is only the length it needs to be to overlap a little.

I used my handy little saw to cut another cork with a v-shape to fit around the curve of the cork at the bottom center of the tree, and glued it in place. I cut the other half in a v for the other tree,

I cut a slice of yet another cork and drew a star on it. I cut the star out using an X-acto knife and glued it to the top of the tree. Tree number one done!

I tied the other ribbon in a bow and tree number two was done!

I decided I didn't like the star the natural cork color, so I carefully painted it gold, but forgot to take pictures. I know you can picture it in your mind, though. And there you have it....two little wine cork trees. Have fun! And if you need wine corks, just let me know. I'll send you some!

As the days the days shorter, so does the time until Christmas. I'm madly trying to get things ready to mail, including my cards. I hope you're ahead of me in your preparations, for in the words of Alexander Smith, "Christmas is the day that holds all time together."  Love to all,