Wine Corsets Development

How to Go About Plannning a New Craft Project

Product Development: Wine Corsets

New craft products don't just happen. Here's how my wine corsets came to be.

I love fancy fabric wine (and other) gift bags. The Artful Crafter is chock full of patterns and ideas for sewn gift bags.

However, after making and selling them for the past four years, I'm afraid my local market is saturated with fabric gift bags.

How can I tell? Because every party we give, I receive at least one of my own hand made gift bags back!

I recognize them because every one has some special touch, like glow-in-the-dark stars and doubled layers of organza that impart a jewel tone look or unique materials like jute or little leather handles or some attachment that suggests the gift inside.

I've hung fresh vanilla beans on bags for vanilla and clusters of artificial grapes on bags for wine. I've even made a bag to hold a bottle of scotch for a friend.

I used his family tartan for the bag and draped a miniature sporran in front to hold the gift tag. Finally I topped the bottle with a tiny tam. I'm glad I have pictures of this one because it was really unique!

The upshot is that I need something fresh and new for the upcoming holiday season. So I'm playing with the idea of wine corsets - personalized labels that are wrapped around a wine of other bottle and tied at the back like a corset.

I tried to tie one up using beaded garland. Naw, you can't tie a bow with beaded garland. LOL. I needed to give this some more thought: ribbon, rick rack, raffia ...

There's often a lot of waste when creating a new design. You try something that doesn't work but it leads to something better. It's really a process of trail and error.

What I Learned along the Way to Making Wine Corsets

1. You can't tie a nice bow in plastic beaded garland.

2. My first design - the one above - looks very pretty onscreen and even when printed; but it doesn't stand out well when wrapped around a wine bottle. I like it though and may use it for this year's Christmas card.

The design uses "Merry Christmas" word art from PrintShop and Scrap Girls products designed by Amanda Sok, Erica Hite and Dinny Miller. The font is Scriptina which I downloaded free.

3. For a wine corset, you want a design that will show almost completely when viewed from the front.

4. Reinforce the punched holes.

5. Glossy photo paper looks terrific.

6. The first time you tie up a new wine corset is like the first time you lace up a new pair of shoes. When you reuse it, you only need to loosen the laces enough to slip the corset over the wine bottle.

7. If you choose ribbon that tends to fray, apply fray block to both ends before threading the ribbon through the holes.

My second design shown below is much plainer and stands out well on a bottle. All I needed was a couple of colored rectangles with Adobe Photoshop styles added, Scriptina font and Merry Christmas word art by Amanda Sok one of the talented Scrap Girls designers.

The typed text says, "Cheer to all who dwell here from Chris & Eileen".

Find directions for making personalized wine corsets here.