During the first year I lived in Manhattan, my roommates and I would often venture down to Vintage Wines in Soho. Being that we were poor and hungry, the $5 wine tastings and free oyster crackers were just the remedy for survival. On a later trip (when I was less poor but still hungry), I noticed a large barrel of wine corks and had the idea to use the corks as name card holders for an upcoming dinner party. I thought I was pretty genius at the time… But here are many more (genius) ideas for recycling and repurposing those leftover corks.

I like these varied takes on the cork bulletin board:

Cork Bulletin Boards, Apartment Therapy ReNest

Cork Bulletin Board, Apartment Therapy

And this pincushion is just adorable!

Cork Pincushions, Poetic Home

LOVE the cork doorknob!

Cork Drawer Pulls, Cottage Living (via Poetic Home)

And a festive fall cork wreath.

Cork Fall Wreath, Jersey Jems

Then there’s this which is… interesting. Moving on…

Cork Armchair, Gabriel Wiese

Cork is often used in home design materials. I, for one, love the idea of walls of cork to just stick stuff on… And I’m a sucker for moveable walls and sliding doors (like in the picture below), for the record.

Cork Sliding Walls, Source Unknown

How smart to use a gold paint pattern over the cork, so lovely!

Patterned Cork Board, Source Unknown

And the tiles at the Tribeca Cinema Lounge are made of cork. (Coincidentally, my agency had our holiday party here a few years back!)

Cork Floor Tiles, Globus Cork Flooring

Finally, here’s the cork nametag project I spoke of above:

Wine Cork Place Card Holder Project, Young House Love

And my most favorite cork application of all… tiny little cork chairs. Where can I buy a village of these?

Mini Cork Chair, via The Design Blog

Ps. I apologize for the fact that when I wrote Wine’d It Up yesterday I thought of this and when I typed in Get Corked today I thought of this. I don’t know why that happened.