03 May 2011

Crafting with Cork


For Earth Day, the Rockefeller Center Anthropologie store
in New York City had these pretty windows {more here}:

Thousands and thousands of old wine corks were used.

Aside from just drawing visual interest,
Anthropologie also wanted to create awareness
that cork is a champion for the environment.
Cork is 100% natural, renewable, recyclable and
biodegradable. It also curbs climate change by
restraining 9 grams of carbon dioxide.
Hooray for cork, right?!

As part of their Earth Day efforts, the store also
had workshops like "Crafting with Cork".
I eagerly signed up!

Here are some members of the store's display team who
headed the workshop. Nature is one of their sources of
inspiration and they use a lot of recycled items for
their window displays. Don't they have the coolest job?

We assembled in one corner of the store...

...and witnessed how cork can turn from
blah to TADA!

We were each given a paper bag with filled with little
disks made out of cork {old wine corks sliced with a
blade}. Each paper bag was sealed using a needle.
To start off the project, we were also given these
little cork circles {made from 6 disks sewn together}.

We were free to choose thread color and
different colored cork disks {dyed with Rit}.
Thimbles were also on hand to help us
get the threaded needle into the cork.

Most of us got so involved with our project.

We made more cork circles and connected these
together with needle & thread to create anything
from a coaster to a trivet!

Here's what I made.
Not quite a heart-shaped trivet, but I've included
the vintage year of some wines {ex. 2006, 2007, 2008};
these years being memorable travel years for me.

You can do the same by saving the wine corks
of the year you graduated, were married,
had a baby, had a promotion or other
years that you consider TADA!


1 comment:

  1. What a great course Claire! I am definitely trying to save all our wine corks. We don't drink much, but when we do I save them. Always a pleasure to read your posts.

    p.s. just letting you know that I'm having a banner giveaway and another giveaway on Sunday. Stop by. Rambles with Reese

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