From monastery to Korek Jelínek Czech headquarters, the story of an historic building.

Korek Jelínek Czech Republic is headquartered in the city of Rychnov u Jablonce nad Nisou. This  year the historic building that houses Korek Jelínek is celebrating its 100th year anniversary. This is the story of this remarkable building and the many changes it has seen. If only walls could talk.

Monastery on the left (before reconstruction in 1975).

The building was constructed in 1912-1913 and began its life as a monastery. The sisters wanted to establish a nursery school and they did helping lead the women to a better life. The building served as a nursery school until 1985. The building then served as a creche until 1992 and then the building became part of a nearby grammar school - including after school childcare, school library and activity clubs. In the 1990s the house was no longer used by the school and the little shops in it struggled for business. It was around then that Jelinek Cork Group saw the building for what it was and stepped in to restore it and make it the home for Korek Jelínek. In 1995 construction began on the old monastery and by 1996 it was operating as Korek Jelínek. The inside of this historic building is well decorated (for both decor and functionality) with cork!

Current Korek Jelínek building.

The Korek Jelínek building -as it looks today.

Cork Creativity

Cork and creativity - the possibilities are endless.

Many times we have no idea what happens to the cork products after the customer receives them but sometimes a customer will send us pictures of their creations. We love to see pictures and hear details of the finished product.

We have a customer who uses cork balls (a ball made of cork - available in many different sizes) to create jewelery. The last time we saw the cork, it was simply cork. We then received this picture and see the cork has been transformed into so much more. With its light-weight and natural properties, cork is an ideal material in jewelery production. By seeing these fabulous cork earrings, one would never guess cork composes the body of this "spider".

Spider earrings - made with cork.

Stay tuned for more cork creations ...

A terrarium made of re-used material.

Recently, a few classes at the local elementary school were building terrariums as part of their science unit. They decided to use recycled material for the containers. The large 2 litre plastic bottles would work perfectly. They would cut these in half, insert the desired material (rocks, soil, plants, water) and then seal them back together with tape. They ran into a problem when it was realized most of the original tops of the bottles were lost. So, they decided a wine cork would work. Sure enough, the recycled wine corks fit into the opening of the bottle and, when inserted, closed off their pop bottle terrariums. Below is the finished product. As a side note, months later the terrariums have yet to be watered and the plants are all thriving.

Sealed with a cork!

Reused materials make an excellent terrarium.

Keeping active at Jelinek Cork

Those who work together also like to play together and that is exactly how we feel at Jelinek Cork. We work hard and play hard! With locations all over the world we rely heavily on technology to communicate but we never lose track of the value of face-to-face communication. When we meet up in person, we like to make it fun and to build a team regardless of where we physically work and reside. What better way to build a team and have fun than with physical activity. This fall, Jelinek Cork staff from our various global locations have come together on a few occasions to participate in fun, team building, athletic events.  

Bratislava, Slovakia: Bratislava River Park Night Run.
Jelinek Cork participants from four

Jelinek Cork locations: Slovakia, Canada, Portugal and Czech Republic.

Mountain climbing in the High Tatras mountain region of Slovakia.

Jelinek Cork participants from four Jelinek Cork locations: Slovakia, Canada, Portugal and Czech Republic.

Savannah, Georgia, USA: 4^th Annual United Way Turkey Trot. Jelinek Cork participants: Canada & USA.

A day home from school + a box of cork

School will be out for the holidays soon and kids will be home looking for things to do. Why not let them use their imagination by getting into your wine cork collection. I gave my kids a box full of random corks - from used wine corks and champagne corks to cork balls and tapered corks. They spent a bit of time "brainstorming" what they wanted to create - they decided on trivets as it was both decorative and useful. They then spent the next couple hours "creating". All this involved were the corks and a bottle of white glue.

Crafting with cork - creating different patterns to create the ultimate trivet.

Concentrating on where to place the next cork.

The finished product - cork trivet.

The cork trivet - different patterns.

* Note: If you don't have enough wine corks or would like some variety in corks, we do offer them on the corkstore.com.

Holiday crafting with cork

Champagne cork "turkeys".

It may only be the beginning of November but now is the perfect time to begin crafting for the holiday season. Re-using wine corks is a great way to create holiday decorations and gifts and it also keeps the wine corks out of the landfills. 

Crafting with cork takes only your imagination and some cork. Add in some craft supplies such as glue, googly eyes, feathers and paint and the ideas are endless. Here are some examples of cork holiday crafts which have become gifts and holiday decorations.

Cork balls (painted) are threaded over thin wire to create these cork candy canes.

Wine corks make a great candle holder. What a beautiful, unique centerpiece.

Wine cork wreath. Add a bow and garlands for color.

Kids looking for gift ideas? Suggest they make these wine cork pencil holders.

These simple holders look nice and take only a few minutes to craft.

Wine cork Santa. Paint a cork, add some eyes, nose and a cotton ball. Cute!

For step-by-step instructions for creating some of these crafts, take a look at our YouTube channel.
Do you need more wine corks or champagne corks for crafting? You can find them online at the corkstore.com

Happy Crafting!

Life (for a cork stopper) after olive oil!

Beautiful Umbria, Italy is home to fabulous olive oils and wines. Olive trees grow throughout the magnificent country side of Umbria. These fine wines and olive oil bottles are stoppered with natural cork. Umbria celebrates these excellent wines and olive oils by displaying their corks both inside the bottle and, once the bottle is finished, outside. 

A large jug of olive oil is sealed with a natural cork stopper.

Olive oil is stoppered with this cork pourer. The bottle is displayed in a holder  made of re-used wine & olive oil corks.

 

 

This entrance to a restaurant in Umbria is made of hanging sparkling wine corks. Note the other containers - all made with re-used corks.

A close-up of the hanging entrance curtain. What a creative way to re-use cork stoppers.