In keeping with my adaptive re-use theme, I recently made some lovely Christmas trees out of wine corks.  The wine cork tree is a display for earrings.  The earrings hang from the top of each cork and look like ornaments on a Christmas tree. 

It was successful, so I put a "wanted" ad on Freecycle requesting additional corks so that I could make some more.  I got almost a dozen responses and went around picking up corks all over the city.  Mixed in with the corks I wanted were a bunch of plastic corks in various colors.  I sorted through all of the corks and removed the plastic ones, then placed an "offered" ad on Freecycle, offering all of the plastic corks in various colors.  

Although nobody on Freecycle responded with interest, I was determined not to let the plastic corks go to the landfill.  So, I decided to try one of my sophisticated wine cork trees out of an assortment of colored plastic corks instead.  I did not love the idea from the beginning, but I really did not imagine how ugly it could possibly be! 

The colored plastic cork tree is much smaller that the original cork tree, which in itself made the appearance of the tree less grand and sophisticated.  I would have built it higher if there was any hope for it, but I think you will agree, there was no hope at any height so there was no use wasting any more time or effort on it!   

Believe it or not, days later, when I lifted the tree to try to move it, the glue was still wet!  Another lesson learned.  Glue that dries very quickly on cork does not always dry quickly on other materials!  You might be able to notice that it is still sitting on waxed paper in the photo!  Isn't that a perfect ending to a craft gone wrong?  

I can hardly wait to give this to someone as a white elephant gift.  What could be more perfect?