31 Days of Pintrest DIY: Day 15 Cork Bathmat

Ahhh, the cork bath mat! Such a natural look, made from discarded items, what could be better?

This project looked so simple and beautiful, I had to try it. After all, how hard could  it be? Just corks and glue, right? It should be a piece of cake! WRONG!

I had this collection of corks for quite some time. We drink wine occasionally, and it had taken me about 2 years to collect these corks. I found this bamboo table runner at the thrift store for a dollar and thought it would make a perfect base for my bathmat. My glue of choice is Tacky Glue. Love it!

Shortly after laying things out on the bamboo mat, I realized I was not going to have enough corks to complete this project even with cutting them in half. I came up with the idea of using a spare piece of cork wall tile in my design to take up space. I didn't think you wanted to wait another 2 years to see this posting while I collected more corks.

Then we began cutting the corks in half. Have you ever tried to cut a cork in half? IT'S ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE! I realize some corks are really cork, and some are more of a plastic material. But, I tried 4 different kitchen knives, butcher knives, bread knives, paring knives, either cork was not easy to cut. At least my cork wasn't. I will admit I buy cheap wine. Perhaps the cork quality suffers in a $4.00 bottle of wine. I don't really know. Fortunately, I only stabbed my self once in this endeavor, and YES I will recover.

So, then I came up with the BRILLIANT idea of using my vintage electric knife to cut the corks. This puppy can slice through any turkey in the galaxy, I was sure it would do the job! But no, it didn't even make a dent in the corks! Talk about frustrating!

It took me at least two hours to saw through enough corks so we could begin to glue them down. James was very helpful in this project. I think he felt sorry for me because I was bleeding. We glued and glued.

Our conversation while gluing went something like this:

James: " Mommy, why are we gluing corks to this thing?"
Me: " Because I said so."
James: "Ah, Mom, why are you bleeding? Are you okay?"
Me: " Yup, shush up and glue."
James: " But I am getting tired."
Me: " I'll give you a bunch of gummy bears if you help."
James: "Okay, but why do we want a cork bath mat? We already have a bath mat. Isn't that kind of stupid?"

Dang kid. Some things are just too complicated to explain.

Designer Mom