DIY Christmas Ornaments

It’s no secret that we like to have a good time at The Junkluggers office parties. So after our latest happy hour we got to thinking about how we could repurpose some of our party leftovers into decorations for the holidays. We came up with a few ideas below to add some festive flare to your home or office using bottle caps and wine corks.

Bottle Cap Snowmen

What you need:

• 3 Bottle caps
• White paint (optional)
• Markers
• Glue gun
• Bottle caps
• String / yarn
• Buttons
• Googly eyes

Instructions:

1. We painted the inside of our bottle caps white to look more authentic, but this is a step you could easily skip if you want to save time. The silver inside of a bottle cap looks just fine.
2. If you painted your bottle caps, let them dry before this next step. Plug in your hot glue gun, align the three bottle caps in a row and glue them together.
3. Now comes the fun part. Using the string or ribbon you’ve found in your holiday wrapping supplies, make your snowman a scarf by tying around the top two bottle caps. You can further embellish this by gluing a button onto the scarf.
4. Give your snowman some personality! We used googly eyes and a marker to draw a snowman smile.
5. To make this into an ornament, you can either glue a ribbon to the backside or do like we did and use a festive paperclip we found in Rachael’s desk.
6. Once the glue has dried, hang your snowman on your Christmas tree or your office plant!

Wine Cork Lights

What you need:

• Wine corks
• Modpodge
• Glitter
• Glue gun
• Twine
• Paper plate

Instructions:

1. Drink a lot of wine and save the corks! If you’re not a wine drinker, you can also buy batches of corks online or even at craft stores.
2. Decide how long you want to make your garland; we used 12 corks with 6 inches between each cork. Cut your twine (for a more rustic look) or holiday ribbon (for a more festive look) to the length you calculate based off of how far apart you want your corks.
3. Tape half of the cork off on the top-side (the side that didn’t touch the wine) with scotch tape. Brush or spray on mod- and sprinkle your desired glitter color on it. We decided to do alternating gold and silver, 6 of each.
4. Once you complete the first round of glitter application be sure to paint a layer (or two) of mod-podge over the glitter to seal it. The mod-podge makes sure the glitter doesn’t come off to the touch as well as trying clear so you can’t even tell it’s there. Allow 20-minutes for the corks to dry fully before moving onto the next step.
5. Peel off the tape or use an exacto knife to make a clean cut of the tape. Then take your hot glue gun and make a generous line of glue on your twine or ribbon, attach the top of the cork (not the glitter part).
6. Hang up and be merry!

Wine Cork Horse

What you need:

• Wine corks (4)
• Champagne cork
• Glue gun
• Yarn
• Wrapping paper scraps
• Serrated knife

Instructions:

1. To make the legs, take two corks and cut on a diagonal starting on the top corner going about about 1/3 of the way from the top using your serrated knife.
2. To make the neck, take one cork and cut just as you did for the legs, starting in the top corner and slicing on a diagonal to about 1/3 of the way down. Then slice the pointy top 1/4 inch off so there’s a flat spot to glue the champagne cork for the head.
3. To make the ears, use the small piece you just sliced off the top of the neck piece and cut it in half. Glue these to the round part of the champagne cork.
4. Glue the champagne cork to the flat edge of the neck piece you cut in step 2. Align the bottom of the neck with another cork laying horizontally and glue them together. Take your two legs and glue them to the bottom of the horizontal piece of cork and now you should have something resembling a horse!
5. To make the saddle, take your wrapping paper scraps and find a piece where you can cut a strip 1.5 inches wide by 6 inches long. Center the paper and drape around the body of the horse and glue. You could also wrap the cork with ribbon scraps or glitter. Use what you have!
6. To make the tail, cut 10 pieces of yarn into 5 inch pieces. Tie a knot at one end and then glue the knot to the back end of the horse.
7. Cut 9 pieces of yarn in 3/4 inch pieces. Put a trail of glue in between the ears and down the neck for a mane. Act quick! The glue dries fast so get each strand of yarn on there as fast as you can!
8. You can add a hook to the top to hang as an ornament or place in the tree supported by a branch.