Re-purposing: Part Deux

What do you do with your empty bottles?

You can put them in the recycle bin on the curb for pick-up — they'll put them to good use and it's better than contributing them to the local landfill.

But what will the neighbors think? 

I read a story recently about concerned wine drinkers who would drive around the neighborhood and "share" their empties with their neighbors' recycle bins after dark to avoid potential suspicions about their imbibing patterns. 

Don't waste your gas — there are many other, more practical ways to use those empties.

Bottle trees are on option. 

I have some that have a variety of bottle types planted on them.

I've made some bottle bushes by jamming pieces of rebar in the ground and planting different bottles on each rebar stem.

Some bottle trees hang like a plant from a beam outside.

My favorite bottle tree is a metal arch.

I picked it up at a flea market and I've covered it with blue and green bottles.

Remember — your plants get thirsty, too.

Poke a hole in a cork, fill one of your empties with with water, then return the cork to the bottle and place the bottle cork first into one of your plants. 

It's both decorative and useful. Thirsty plants will appreciate the time-release refreshment.

But at some point, you'll have to explain to your neighbors why your plants drink so much.

Re-purposing

Isn't everybody doing this now?

It's easy to think of reasons to do it ranging from the environmental to the creative.

Why wouldn't you do it?

Those reasons range from being lazy to too busy.

Results of a "wine cork art" Internet search can lead you to some very ambitious re-purposers' very ambitious projects.

Portraits, letters, pieces of art, globes, picture frames, bird houses, wreaths ...

Maybe I'm a little bit too lazy and a little bit too busy with my wine gardening - otherwise known as a passive re-purposer.

But even passive re-purposers can create interesting objects.

This is one of my favorites.

A big empty jar, a little paint, a few (hundred) corks and voila — re-purposed art for a bar or kitchen.

Consider a collection of interesting bottles filled with wine corks to keep the big red wine jug company.

A crate and an old label can give a wine bottle an official winery look.

Fill it with corks and it looks even more official. 

Corks can be added to bottles of all shapes and sizes. 

  

Another reason to re-purpose: It gives you something else to contemplate as you're enjoying a nice glass of wine on a nice summer evening.