Bottle Cap Update

The bottle caps are starting to roll in. I picked up my first batch last Friday from someone in Sebastopol. I estimate he gave me around 400 caps that he had personally collected. I didn't count them before I integrated them into the rest of my collection so I am not sure.

I realized that if I want to keep track of my progress I need to have some way to estimate quantity so that I don't have to actually count every single one. It's time consuming enough to sort them. So, I now know that 1 pound is about 190 bottle caps.

Yesterday I got two packages in the mail. One was from Novi, MI. The gal who sent me these bottle caps is part of the Wine and Cheese Project. Here's what she wrote about it:

The Wine and Cheese project originated at a catering company. As is frequent with any businesses, they do not recycle. A few employees decided to take action. Usually recyclables include beer bottles, bottle caps, wine corks, and wine, champage/liquor bottles. At this time, The Wine & Cheese Project has gifted over 9,800 bottles this year, 8,000 wine corks, 300 plastic tubs and 0 beer bottle caps. Lamps, tumbled glass cabinet handles, mosaic glass vase, a wine bottle wall, are some of the artistic re-uses W&C has faciltated.

Cool, huh? I got close to 2000 bottles caps from her.

The other package was from a guy in L.A. who had been saving bottle caps for his own project but decided to give them to me instead. He sent me around 760.

Also, last night I picked up caps from a someone who lives in the Outer Sunset district of San Francisco. He and his girlfriend made a bottle cap dress in 2007 but hadn't stopped collecting them after the project was complete. I got a little over 1100 caps from them. They were grateful I was taking them off their hands.

Today I made two pick-ups in Berkeley. The first was a women who has been, as she put it, "saving bottle caps for a long, long time." I got over 4000 from her. Whoa!

The other guy gave me around 1700. He had accumulated his collection over a six year period.

And this is all just the tip of the iceburg. As of today I estimate that I have 17,400 of the 20,874 that I need. That last 3500 should be a piece of cake at this rate. Now I really have got to get to work!

I don't think I am going to need to worry about having enough bottle caps for future art projects, either. Be careful what you wish for, I guess. It's funny - after I finished the Bottle Cap Tree I swore I would not make art with bottle caps ever again. Never say Never.

Cool Bottle Cap Art (That's Not My Own) of the Day: These came in a couple of the packages of bottle caps that I recently received.