Barn Swallowed

As spring is slowly turning into summer, my eyes begin to roam the timeshare catalog to locate this year's summer trip. For the last two years, we have booked the Wyndham Smoky Mountains Resort in Sevierville/Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. My husband and a couple of our kids really like to hike the Smoky Mountains (notice that I am not included in that lot?), but after last year's bear experience, I'm not thinking we'll return for a third year. But I digress...
The first year we went, we were on our way to the Forbidden Caverns, a pretty cool cave, if you're into that kind of thing. As we were cruising up this two lane country road toward the cave I spied with my little eye a dilapidated barn, some weary outbuildings, and a sign that said "Antiques". At the time I was really into this show called "American Pickers". If you are not familiar with that show, the premise is that these two guys roam the countryside in search of valuable junk found in barns and outbuildings like we had just driven past. They then restore it and flip it in their store for ridiculous profit. I HAD to go there! Being the selfless mother that I am, we proceeded to the cave tour first and returned to the dusty barn afterward. Now, it was hot that day (I mean,meat falling off the bone kind of hot), and my husband basically was humoring me by letting me go in there to poke around while he sat in the air-conditioned car with the four kids. I could not get enough of that place and was M.I.A. for more time than I should have been and could sense the dark clouds of a bicker-fest quickly approaching. As I was collecting my dusty treasures to pay for them, my eyes spotted a bushel basket full of old bottle caps. Oh, you know the kind I mean if you are of a certain age. The ones that used to fall into a little metal can when you opened your glass soda bottle on the machine. The ones that were lined on the inside with CORK! I was so stinking excited, I picked through that basket for about 10 more minutes and came home with some super-cool caps. Totally worth the complaining I had to deal with when I got back to the car. I had some plans for these babies, I just didn't know what yet...

Fast forward 18 months when I'm cleaning a closet and open an unfamiliar bag containing my  forgotten bottle caps. By then, I had figured out what I wanted to do with them, but then couldn't locate them. I know this happens to other people, right? So, I got busy, and here's what I did with some of them:

This one is a bracelet. I think I'll put it Etsy. I made some into magnets for my awesome office taskboard (see "Oilpan, Schmoilpan") The one below had a scratched top, so I put a sticker on top and covered it with an epoxy dot. This one, or one similar, will be a prize to the 25th "liker" of my blog. Free stuff, Yay!!

This is on an 18 inch annodized aluminum chain. I don't know if you can enlarge this pic, but under the little boy with the crown on his head, it says "Sweet Prince". Awww.

Here's the back of it so you can see the actual cork.

BEE Picky :)