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If you frequently enjoy a bottle of wine at home and you are like most wine drinkers, you likely have a collection of wine corks tucked away in a kitchen drawer somewhere. Saving wine corks is a time-honored tradition. It’s a reminder of good friends, good parties, and, most importantly, great bottles of wine.

Wine corks can be simply plain with no markings or can be elaborately decorated with pictures and the wine’s maker mark. They can be an art form on their own and are quite stunning when grouped together. Often the problem is in deciding how best to showcase them.

One unique way to show off your wine cork collection is by making them into a useful and beautiful trivet. Trivets can be used under hot pots and plates to protect counter tops and tables from being marked or scorched. Cork absorbs heat without transferring it to other surfaces and therefore makes a perfect material for a trivet.

There are two basic methods for making trivets with corks. If your corks are ornate with words and designs, displaying them on their sides where the markings are visible is the most attractive presentation. Alternatively, you can group them standing up on end. We will discuss the first method of displaying corks.

To begin the project, make sure that the corks are all relatively clean. Corks from red wine bottles will have a purple stain on one end and many people like that look. If you want to make this project but do not have a collection of corks, you can purchase unused wine corks at wine supply and accessory stores. Give all of the corks a rinse in lightly bleached water and allow them to dry completely before using. Make sure that all of the corks are traditional real cork. Many corks today used in inexpensive wines are compressed cork bits held together with glue. These “corks” won’t hold up as long as the real thing. Rubberized wine stoppers, also becoming popular due to the worldwide shortage of cork, should be culled out of the collection as well. They will not hold the heat the same way that real cork does.

For a cork trivet using corks laid flat, you can simply glue the corks together in a design or you can arrange them inside a square or rectangular picture frame with the glass removed. Take some time to arrange the corks into attractive designs. For example, you can group the corks in pairs to make blocks, and then arrange the blocks with a vertical pair beside a horizontal pair. Alternate the blocks to create a repeating design. Arrange and re-arrange your design several times before committing to gluing them together. If using a picture frame as the outer barrier of the trivet, find one that closely matches the size of the cork display so that there are no gaps.

When you have your design finalized, use a hot glue gun to apply a thin bead of glue to one side of each cork and place into the picture frame. If you are not using a picture frame, each cork gets glued to each other at the side. Hold each cork in place for 60 seconds to allow the glue to cool and hold the cork firm. When all of the corks are in place, allow the trivet to sit for a few hours before using.