On the First Day of Christmas...

As promised I am going to do a "12 Days of Christmas" affordable gift ideas blog of things that you can make, bake or put together yourself. I have a whole list of ideas but I haven't tried all of them. I only want to write about ones that I've personally made myself so I'm not just copying and pasting someone else's idea.

So on the First Day of Christmas, I'm going to share my favorite craft idea. A while ago, my boyfriend and I started becoming interested in wine. As we started to try different bottles, I decided to start collecting the corks. I thought it would be fun to figure out some wine cork crafts to do. What really jump started my cork collection was him bringing home a bag of corks from his work where they do wine tasting. That way I actually had enough to make a bunch of things since you have to drink a lot of wine to get your collection started.

So once I had corks, I needed ideas. Visiting a winery a couple years ago, we purchased the cutest reindeer ornament  I believe I paid $6 for it but decided it was a good investment so that I would have a tangible example if I wanted to try and make them myself.

Craft: Reindeer Ornament
Supplies Needed:
-5 wine corks (you can use cork or rubber corks but need at least one regular cork for the neck)
-Small red pom poms for nose
- Medium pom poms for tail, preferably in Christmas colors (red, green, white)
-Tiny black pom poms for eyes
-Brown pipe cleaners for antlers
-Brown felt for ears
-Thick decorative ribbon for saddle and thin ribbon to hang ornament
Tools Needed:
-Hot glue gun and glue sticks
-Scissors
-Knife

Step 1: Glue 4 wine corks together to make body and neck (see above picture).
Step 2: Before adding the head, shave the top of the neck using a knife so that the top is slanted.
Step 3: Glue the head on the slanted part so that it is at an angle (see above picture).
Step 4: Cut and shape pipe cleaners to make antlers and glue on head.
Step 5: Cut out 2 ears from felt and glue on back of head.
Step 6: Glue on 2 tiny black pom poms for eyes
Step 7: Glue on small red pom pom for nose
Step 8: Glue on medium pom pom for tail
Step 9: Cut a small piece of decorative ribbon and glue on for saddle
Step 10: Cut a thin piece of ribbon long enough to make a loop, tie it around neck leaving a loop to hang as an ornament.

This is one of those projects that's pretty self explanatory as long as you have an example to look at. You just need to get the basic body and then you can improvise with the add ons for the face, tail, ears, etc. I'm sure there are tons of variations. The first year I discovered these, I gave them as Christmas presents to everyone! They're super cute and fairly easy to make once you have all the supplies!