corky-cork and the funky cork board

I made this for my friend's birthday last weekend. He is really into wine. (Sorry about the picture, someone is in a very tactile time in life.) So my first instinct was to buy him some nice wine, but I was a little intimidated by the prospect of picking out something he wouldn't poo-poo. Not that he is snobby enough to poo-poo, but he is someone who knows about tannins and can smell notes of nutty gooseberry and coconut sausage...

So, I turned to my beloved one pretty thing search box. I always start there when searching for gift ideas. There I found this inspiration from Apartment Therapy. I just happened to have a bazillion wine corks because my husband is a bartender and has been bringing them home from the restaurant for quite some time. I always complained about this and said I had no idea what we would do with them. So yeah,  I'm pretty much always right about things like that.

I did mine a little differently though. First I found the frame we already had in a closet and spray painted it red. Then, the apartment therapy version suggests getting a wood board cut to the size of your frame at the hardwood store, but I didn't have time for that. So I just cut a piece of cardboard to fit from a Pampers box. That, with the cardboard backing the frame already had, seemed like it would be sturdy enough.

Then I just started hot-gluing. This picture shows my first round, then I just worked my way in from there. I had to cut corks to make them fit sometimes, but they cut very easy with an exacto knife.

When I finished, I stuck some tacks on it, along with a couple blank list sheets I printed out entitled, "Wines to try." I really liked the way it turned out. I hope he did too. I know a cork board isn't the most exciting gift for a man, but I think he thought the wine part was cool. Anyway, making stuff for guys that they will actually like is hard! I still have never sewed anything for a man. Nick always asks when I'm going to make him something. Then I remind him of that one time I made him an omelet. Oh, and that small person I made in my uterus.

So has anyone come across any good tutorials or ideas for guy gifts? I'd love to hear in the comments!