Here’s a loving idea for your Valentine – a wine cork angel that celebrates special places and special music in your life by including wings made from maps or music sheets.
You get bonus marks if you can use the wine cork that you saved on the day that you first danced to what ultimately became “your song”. Same for a wine cork popped at a time, and in a place, that lives forever in your heart.
Celebrate Memories with Valentine Wine Cork Angels
Sometimes it’s difficult to settle on a gift for your partner on Valentine’s Day. Much as you love them, there’s all these questions: How big of a gift should it be? How big of a deal is it? How much is too much? Or too little?
These wine cork angels for your Valentine may be the answer to them all. Crafted with love, these angels carry wings made from maps of your favorite places or music sheets representing your song.
They are easy to assemble from a wine cork base and a few craft supplies. But make it personal: find a map meaningful to you both, print it out, then make angel wings from the map. You are literally crafting memories.
Same with the mini music sheet wings. These do not have to be the exact notes of a special song, although that would be nice. I used snippets of old music books from a thrift store but you could also use music notes from an online image, print the lyrics of your favorite song or perhaps a photo of a favorite musical instrument printed on foldable paper.
Variations: If maps or music don’t appeal, think of something else representative of your personal relationship. A poem? A tiny print of an art work you both adore? Even a photo of your house or home, wherever your heart belongs.
Project Instructions:
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You Will Need:
- wine or champagne cork for each angel
- memorabilia pieces – such as maps or music sheets; each 1.75 inches long and 2.5 inches wide
- doll’s head wooden circle or bead (This is an Amazon link, but I got my face discs, about 1.25″ diameter, from the dollar store)
- doll’s hair or fake hair (Amazon)
- tiny silk flowers or handmade ribbon bows
- foam heart shape in red or pink for the base
- gold or silver pipe cleaner
- Tools: scissors; hot glue gun and glue sticks; ruler; utility knife.
How to:
- Cut Two Small Rectangles: Cut two paper rectangles, each 1.75″ long and 2.5″ wide, from the memorabilia that you have chosen, whether that is part of a map, music notes or another image that is memorable for you and your Valentine.
- Fan-fold the Wings: Fan-fold the 2.5″ section into a minimum of four folds and preferably five. As you can see above, my music wine cork angel has four folds while the map angel has five. I like the fullness of five folds.
- Scalloped Edges: You can use pinking shears or fancy edging scissors to scallop the edges of the wings. This is optional, but on the map angel, I took a pink sharpie and just added a small line of pink to the scalloped edge of each wing. A line of glitter would add a bit of sparkle.
- Add Hair: Cut a swatch of doll hair to cover the top of the angel’s head as well as part way down the sides and around the back of the head. Place a dot of hot glue on the top front of the doll head and gently push the middle of the hair swatch into place. Add more glue on the upper right and upper left of the face. Press the hair into place there. Hot glue more hair, as needed, to cover the back of the angel’s head. If necessary, trim off any stray pieces of hair.
- Add the Wings: Decide on which part of the cork is going to be the front of your angel. On either side of this frontal area, use a utility knife to cut two small slits. These will hold the edge of the fan-folded wings.
What you need is a slit which ideally wedges the edge of the wing in place. That’s difficult if you can’t hold it open as you insert the edge of the wing. It’s easier just to cut two, very thin, vee-shaped, slivers, one on either side of the frontal area. These probably won’t hold the wing on their own but they do create an out-of-sight area for gluing each wing in place.
Test fit the inside edge of a fan-folded paper wing, holding the folds together as you ease the wing edge into the slivered depression that you just created. If all seems well, run a very small bead of hot glue or craft glue along the folded end of the wing and insert it into one side of the cork. Do the same on the other side. You’ve now earned your angel some pretty wings.
- Finishing Touches: Now our angel comes together as you get out the hot glue gun again and glue on the angel’s head. Because my angel’s head was a 1.5 inch disc, rather than a globe or bead, I found that I had to bolster up the glue behind the head. This was easily covered by hair. And, by the way, a bead doll-head, maybe a bit smaller, should work just fine for this project.
A tiny dab of hot glue will hold a small silk rose embellishment or homemade dinner fork ribbon bow. Place this on top of the cork, as shown, just in front of head, creating a collar effect.
Hot glue your wine cork angel on top of a craft foam heart pointed to the back, or front, as you prefer.
And, finally, take a small piece of gold or silver pipe cleaner (or chenille stem) and wrap it, very loosely, around your thumb, once. Cut the stem but allow room to twist the ends together. Do that, then push the twisted stub down, blending into the halo circle.
Set the halo on top of the angel’s hair. Adjust the shape if needed. Apply a small amount of glue to the bottom of the halo and gently set the halo in place on the angel’s head.
Now your wine cork angel is complete, give it with all your love to your Valentine.
If you have more corks than you know what to do with, consider this cork Valentine silhouette heart project by Sand and Sisal. You’ll be leaving AllFreeCrafts. But please come back soon!
If your interest lies in more angels, please see our Feathered Valentine Angel or this very popular Lace Ribbon Angel for more inspiration.
And, if you tried this project, please let me know in the comments. I’d be tickled to know the love is spreading.
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