Wine Cork Cord Keeper

Dig those plastic wine corks out of your junk drawer and make something useful!

Supplies: Plastic wine corks and bits of leftover paracord or cord from old lanyards.

Tools: Electric Drill, various drill bits, scissors, cigarette lighter or stove, and

OOPS! Also need: Offset wrench (preferably with concave jaws), ice pick or awl with ROUNDED tip, ruler or tape measure.

Optional: Drill bit sizing tool, Sharpie marker.

Decide how long you want the cord to be and cut cording to length. Start with a minimum length of 18" or about 45cm; this length will give you a cord keeper that will hold extension cords or the electrical cord of one of your tools. You can go as small as about 15" (about 38cm), or larger than 18" if you want to hold multiple outdoor extension cords in one cord keeper. About two inches of your cord will be used up in the knots at the ends, so cut your cord a little longer than you think you might need.

Cut the cord with scissors and melt the ends with the cigarette lighter or at your stove top. Make sure the cord has nice, solid tips.

Choose a drill bit that is about the same diameter as your cord, and maybe a tiny bit smaller. If the holes turn out too small, you can always go back and make them larger, but in the end, you want the cord to move in the hole with some friction. So err on the small size when choosing a drill bit. You can lay your cord next to your drill bits and eyeball it, or you can use a drill bit sizing tool.

Next, drill two holes CROSSWISE in the plastic wine cork, about 1cm apart. I marked two dots on the first cork I drilled. That gave me enough experience to drill the rest of the corks without marking them in advance.

I gripped the cork TIGHTLY in my offset wrench and held it over my kitchen sink. My left hand was stabilized on the countertop. If you have easy access to a bench top vise, you can use it, but this was quicker and easier for me.

When you make the holes, work the drill up and down a few times to ream out the hole as much as possible. The rubbery plastic material will appear to shrink and make the hole smaller; don't worry about that.

You're about to find out if you drilled the hole the right size, but never fear: if you absolutely can't get the cord into the cork, you can switch to a slightly larger drill bit and enlarge the holes.

Use an awl with a ROUNDED tip (is there such a thing? I used an old ice pick). Start by pushing the tip of the cord into one of the holes with your fingers, until it stays there. Then insert the ice pick between some of the webbing on the cord very close to the hole, and push the ice pick into the hole. What should happen is that your ice pick goes inside your cording, hits the back of the plastic tip that formed when you melted the cord, and pushes the cord through the hole. As soon as you can grab a bit of the cording on the other side, slip the ice pick out of the cord, and pull the cord through. Do the same thing to push the cord back the other way, through the other hole.

Tie a knot in each end of the cord.

To use the cord keeper, wrap it around your electrical cord, put the cork through the loop, and tighten.

Now make a bunch more and get organized! Make extras because friends and family will occasionally walk off with some!