Wedding DIY: How to make cork menu holders

Our wedding was a complete DIY affair as I wrote about here and here, and so I promised I'd share with you some of the projects we undertook in case you fancied having a go yourselves. Over the next month I'll be sharing lots of wedding related loveliness in amongst the usual fun, food and frolics around the world!



When we were planning the seating arrangements for the wedding meal, we'd thought of everything else, including designing our own menus, but forgot about how we were going to display said menus! Duh! I'd thought we might provide each guest with a menu each on their plate but as the countdown began, we realised that as well as being a bit of a faff, it was a waste of paper, as they'd invariably end up in the bin later.

One of the key things for us was to have an ethical, local, seasonal and,where possible, eco feel to the day and so we decided to do a menu per table instead. We then faced the issue of how to display them, though, and quickly had to get to work to thing of a solution that fitted with our rustic wedding theme.

We had a whole bunch of corks lying around from when we decorated and distressed wine bottles for other decorations, so it inspired us to use them for our menu holders and we were really pleased with the result in the end.

If you'd like to have ago at making them, you'll need a ball of brown string or twine, scissors, super glue and some corks. If you haven't got any wine corks hanging around (hiccup!) then you can buy craft corks quite cheaply online. They usually come in a bag of 100, so you should have plenty.

You'll need six corks per menu holder, so start by grouping them together, three deep.

Then ask someone to test how much strong you need by wrapping it around the bottom of the six corks until it is wrapped three or four times. Then cut the string and use this as the measurement to cut all other pieces of string.

Once you're happy with the arrangements of the corks, take your super glue and carefully put a dollop on one end of the string. You might want to wear gloves to avoid corks being stuck to your fingers on your wedding day!! Wrap the string around firmly and when you reach the end of the loop, put another dollop of glue on the other end of the string.

Then place each menu holder carefully on a piece of newspaper in a place where they won't get knocked. Repeat this process for as many menu holders as you need. We used one per table but it depends how big your tables are.

Then leave them to dry for a good 24 hours before picking them. Once they are dried, you can place up to an A5 sized piece of card in the top of each holder. Et voila. Easy, cheap, and effective wedding DIY.

What wedding DIY tricks and tips have you tried?