My latest creation

This sad little wine cork board kit has been living on the top shelf of my laundry room for months. The lonely corks have been sitting nearby, atop the washing machine.

This weekend, I decided (FINALLY!) to do something about it. Working the wine-stained cylinders into the wooden tray seemed easy at first. But it became a puzzle. A pretty difficult puzzle. After struggling with trying to make them fit without cutting them, C. had a great idea: use his pvc pipe cutter. The next day, armed with the pipe cutter, glue, sandpaper and a dwindling amount of corks, I worked another couple of hours and at last, this 16"x16" beaut was ready to hang on one of the kitchen walls.

It gave me a chance to display a handful of corks that remind me of special occasions. The two bottles of wine we drank in Fiji -- one at dinner with new friends, another while sharing a romantic dinner for two on the beach. Another cork -- from a La Crema bottle of shiraz -- was a late addition. There are simply outrageous corks: the Electric Reindeer cork, the only red one on the board, and four with the label "RIBBIT!" A series of corks that have one word on them, such as "heritage", "patience" and "renewal." There's also the lone Whitehall Lane cork, stained with the cabernet of which C. bought an entire case.

The finishing touch was spur of the moment, really. I had saved the cork from a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne C. and I sipped near the time of our third anniversary, the one when we first met. It's a wonder I even found it. I had marked around it "1-6-05 THIRD ANNIVERSARY VEGAS." I cut off the mushroom-like top and here's what appeared.

P.S. Lest you think we drank all these bottles of wine, about half the supplies came from C. He opens loads of wine bottles at work, so that's where we got all the Guenoc, Crane Lake, Chateau St. Jean, Ravenswood, Louis Jadot and Benziger corks in bulk!

P.P.S. You can hardly see them at the top, but when I bought the kit, I also ordered a set of six pewter push pins. They're in the shapes of a wine bottle, grapes and a wine glass.