Recently I saw a video that brought tears to my eyes: a little girls was gifted a small box that only had a piece of string inside, and she was almost ecstatic receiving that totally worthless present. It reminded me once again that the best gifts are counted in the happiness of giving and receiving more than anything else.

Finding the perfect gift for a kid could be real challenging. Any gift is useless unless you put your heart in it. Do you want to make a kid happy with the gift you give him, then make him laugh and feel your love.

Crafting yourself a present for him or her might be the way to do it. And here’s something you could easily craft when you need a present for a child: wine cork stamps. Keep reading for more!

What You Need

Wine corks are one of my favorite material lately, and if you missed my projects about how to use them for your kitchen furniture makeover or for replacing the pan lid holder, now is the time to check them out.

Making stamps out of the wine corks was easy and fun. Keep a few corks on hand, along with a cutter, a pen and a piece of paper, and prepare the acrylic paint for testing. But before starting you project, leave the corks for 10 minutes in boiling water, to make them softer and easier to cut in shapes with sharp edges.

Choosing the Design

Use the piece of paper and a cork to draw a circle in the same size at the cork you are going to cut. If you’re not familiar to drawing, this circle will help you test your designs before chopping the cork. Draw a star or a tree within the circle using just a few simple lines. The less you draw, the easier will be the cutting.

Let’s draw a star! Place one point in the center of the cork, and another five points on the circle, distributed evenly. Another smaller points come between those five, closer to the center, as you see below, then draw a line from one big point to a smaller one till you get the contour of the star. All you have to do now is to press the cutter on each side of the star in order to make a cut 2-3 millimeters deep, then cut small slices from outside to inside, between these cuts, so you would finally have a star left.

Use the same technique to chop the cork into a tree or a comet. Remember to draw the helping points then unite them with lines, to ease your creative effort.

Use the Stamps to Make Customized Wrapping Paper

Now that you have these stamps, try them on with some acrylic paint, as this type of paint is more flexible and resistant. Here are a few of my favorite colors – gold, red and green, which I used to create some gorgeous designer wrapping paper to use this Christmas.

Use a small brush to put the paint on the stamp for the first time. This is how you will see how the paint looks on cork and how easy will be transferred on paper. Press the painted cork on the paper without moving it otherwise the final print will look anything but neat. Also, take care not to put too much paint on the cork or your image will look bulky.

The problem is, that once you start stamping, you can hardly stop. If you didn’t craft these stamps for giving them as a present, then gift them to yourself and enjoy the fun of the stamping fury!