Corks with a purpose

I hope those who celebrate had a Happy Easter yesterday. We here on LI were surprised to have had a beautiful 82 degree day when they were calling for foul weather all along. I was happy for all those kiddies out there who were thrilled to be able to hunt for their eggs in such fine weather! I remember being a kid and being super bummed when it would rain on Easter. Something about hunting for eggs in the living room is not nearly as awesome as digging around in the bushes looking for them. Saturday was a whole different story though. Ugh the weather was total crap. And it was my birthday and the hubby and my sister both had to work which left me with a lot of time on my hands. So I decided to take a drive and hit up some of my favorite places to kill indoor spur of the moment time: Anthropologie.

I love walking around Anthropologie. I'm not so crazy about their clothing though because #1 its ridiculously expensive and #2 its not quite my style. But sometimes I luck out and score something good off their sale racks. And they certainly have some hefty mark downs. I once bought a sweater for $5o (which is still too expensive) marked down from $200. Just goes to show the mark up on their stuff. Regardless, they definitely have the best displays and chach-kee around. I can walk around that store for a good hour looking at everything. There is such attention to detail, it amazes me. So first thing I noticed when I walked into the store Saturday were these awesome cork balls. Complete with succulents and moss!! I nearly died I was so excited.

Totally stoked me up because I've recently been saving some serious corks for an upcoming not yet determined project. Apparently Anthro held a cork drive and asked their customers to help contribute for this Earth Day specific project. At the end of the month they are going to dismantle the displays and send the corks to a cork recycling plant where they will find new life as flooring, shoes, walls, whatever. I dug that. Whats amazing is the fact that they were able to collect so many actual corks. With the price of cork skyrocketing due to its demand and the huge potential of the cork tree extinction, wineries are going more of the way of synthetic corks which is kind of a bummer. I mean look at all the different variations and colors going on here. You just don't get that same effect with synthetic corks. You can check out more of their cork displays here which I suggest looking at http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthropologiephotos/sets/72157626551862864/with/5642678505/

Anyway this whole cork thing reminded me of a recent trade I made with an old college buddy. He started making cork boards so the request went out for corks. I'm not much of a wine-o but my in laws sure are! And with a slew of bar tending friends I was able to save up and ship out a whole ton of corks to him on 2 separate occasions. Here's some of the stash back around Christmas.

I then threw in 2 crocheted hats into the deal and we had ourselves a trade. Here's one of the hats.

And here's what he sent me

Pretty neat huh? You can check out his wife's website here. http://recyclemoe.com/default.aspx

They are pretty crunchy kids living up in Burlington VT. They even took 6 months off and thru hiked the Appalachian Trail. Buy something from her OK! Everything she sells is fully recycled / up cycled. Some cute stuff and very creative. Anyway do me a favor and start saving up them wine corks. The projects are endless. Me?? I'm thinking some cork love beads in the future? Or maybe a necklace?? I'll let you know. Ta Ta for now