Wine Tasting

Since my beautiful daughter was born three month ago (I can't believe it's been that long!), I've rekindled my love affair with wine. In February I went to Newport's Seafood and Wine festival with my husband and friends Pat and Tim. They are platonic friends and the plan was to tell anyone who asked that they were cousins! To mark this drunken-filled afternoon, I made wine charms for Pat and I. Our running joke is that whenever we do something fun together, we always have to be the cutest we've ever looked. So to play up that joke, I wanted our wine glasses to be the cutest they've ever looked, too. I've made two different types of wine charms in the past, ones that wind around the stem of the glass and ones that are a ring at the bottom of the stem. Each one incorporates beads and a charm. However, for our glasses to truly be the cutest they've ever been, I needed something new. I decided to buy a thin feather boa, cut off about 3 inches, wire it to a wine charm ring, add a dangling wire of beads and a fun girly charm. The boa proved to be the cutest and was also reminiscent of when Pat and I wore black feather boas to our Junior year homecoming dance. By the end of the dance, our arms, faces, and necks were black from the dye. As soon as the lights came on and we realized what happened, we screamed in unison and high tailed it to the ladies room! Oh, high school memories! Here is a picture of the three different types of charms that are now in my repertoire:

For my friend Katie's birthday, a group of 10 of us girls went to Oregon wine country for an afternoon of wine tasting. We went to three different wineries: Solena, Natalie's Estate, and Canas Feast. To help with the party planning, I offered to make wine charms and made each girl a feather boa with a wine related charm. There were two of each charm, all with different colored beads to tell them apart. I found at Michaels on clearance already made ring-style wine charms that I ended up taking apart to make the feather boa type. The charms included cheese, bottles, glasses, and a little dangly sign that read "vino". The boa charms were a hit and the birthday girl loved them.

After all this wine tasting, I've been thinking about what to do with the corks. I've been saving them for awhile, contemplating making cork boards or a trivet. I finally decided to make picture frames for the pictures from the wine events I've been attending. I cut each cork in half and hot glued them onto wooden picture frames purchased at the dollar store. I then changed the pictures to black and white. I think they turned out pretty cute! Here is a picture of Pat and me at the Seafood and Wine festival. This project lends itself to many variations. You could make a frame with corks from a specific area, like Napa, or in my case, Oregon wine country. Each frame could then hold a picture of you sampling wine from that particular region. You could also get sentimental and save corks of wine you've drank with a friend and then put a picture of you two together in the frame. Or if you have a favorite wine, use corks only from that winery. If you got a thicker wood frame, you could glue on multiple rows of corks. Whichever you choose, have fun with it!

If you'd like more detailed instructions of any of my projects, please leave a comment and I'll directly email you!