each year my family draws names between my siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. we draw names and then give home made gifts. this is the third year we've done it. the gifts are getting harder to make because we have made them for a few years now and we try not to copy each other. this year's gifts, in my opinion, were the best yet. I drew my cousin, Stacia's name, and the husband drew my brother's (his gift to follow).
I made Stacia wine stoppers.
here are the supplies: 3 decorative drawer pulls from hobby lobby, corks, gorilla glue epoxy, a decorative box, and paper "fluff" to fill the decorative box.
first I took the drawer pulls and corks and decided a good height for the corks to be. I could have left the corks exactly how I purchased them, but I thought they came too far out of the bottle. I measured and cut three corks down to the size I desired using a hack saw. husband then drilled a hole in to the middle of the cork for the drawer pull to go through.
he also made the hole slightly larger on the bottom so we could counter set the nut into it.
then all pieces were put together. (for two of the stoppers I had to buy a decorative "washer" from home depot to finish off the cork so that it looked right against the glass pull) I put the epoxy on to the top of the cork, and inside the hole of the cork, and screwed the cork onto the pull.
after the epoxy dried the husband cut off the remainder of the pull, the bolt part of it, with a hack saw. he then used a grinder to make it smooth. the final step was to add some epoxy to the base where the nut and bolt were showing to make sure it was completely smooth and secure.
the finished product:
she loved them! and so did I. I want to make a set for myself now too! I also added a bottle of champagne to the gift (her favorite), but these given with a bottle of wine would be a perfect hostess gift, housewarming gift, or a gift for any other occasion -- they can be completely customized for the person in mind and they are more personal than any other stoppers I've seen in stores.
