Wine Cork Reindeer- Success!

I was a little skeptical of this project at first, but Mrs. A brought it to the table and insisted it would be adorable. Being avid wine makers, Mr. and Mrs. A have an endless supply of wine corks. These, coupled with my mini cork collection supplied us with enough to make several of these Christmas ornaments. I'll give Mrs. A credit on this one, the project turned out adorable and was a great success!



Materials Needed:
- Wine corks (5 per ornament)
- Small red pom pom (for nose)
- Small black pom pom (for tail)
- Black jewelry stringing wire. We used 20 gauge copper wire.
- Christmas ribbon
- Googly eyes
- Safety pin (for putting antlers in)
- Glue gun
- Kitchen steak knife



Step One: Cut one cork in half, angling the cut. The full size cork will be used as the head and the half cork as the neck. Glue these corks together using a glue gun.


Step Two: Cut an angle on the cork you are using for the "body" and attach it to the neck with the glue gun. For smoother corks, you may want to score the two connection points to make the glue stick better.

Step Three: Attach "leg" corks. You may choose to angle the bottom of the neck, too, to make the front leg angled. At this point, all corks should make the shape of a reindeer. It took me a few minutes to get used to the idea that my reindeer only had one front and one back leg, but after I got used to it, I really liked it!

Step Four: Glue red pom pom on head cork for a nose and black pom pom on the back of the body cork for a tail. At this point, also glue the eyes onto the head.

Step Five: This is probably the hardest part. Cut the wire about 3 inches long and shape two of them into the shape of antlers. It took us a few tries to get it to look right but once you get it down, it's actually not that hard.

Step Six: Once the antlers are shaped, use a safety pin to poke holes where you want the antlers to go. Dig the antlers into the cork until they are secure.

Step Seven: Tie a ribbon around the reindeer neck to look like a scarf. I used wire strung ribbon, as it was easier to wrap around, but any ribbon will work.

Step Eight: Take a picture of your masterpiece and post it! If you want to use it as an ornament, hang some fishing line on it.

This project was really pretty easy! Despite my skeptisicm of Mrs. A's idea, I am really pleased with these! They will make great additions to the bottles of wine we plan to give for Christmas presents this year!