The Science Store at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is now carrying Sundrops! Enjoy late night star gazing and local snacks and drinks at OMSI After Dark, the traveling SPACE exhibit, and the domed OMNIMAX theater. The Science Store also carries science-themed books, movies, toys and clothes.

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White Rabbit Boutique in Martinez, CA is now carrying Sundrop Jewelry along with it’s other eclectic offerings of clothing, incense, red hat lady items, greeting cards, and everything in between.

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Sundrop Jewelry is now being carried by the Nature Store at the Schlitz Audubon Center in Milwaukee, WI. The Center has hiking trails, workshops, nature exhibits and raptor programs, and even a Nature Preschool! The Nature Store carries nature-oriented or otherwise ‘green’ books, games, puzzles and jewelry.

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Two stores in Watsonville, CA have just started carrying Sundrop Jewelry.

• Alladin Nursery and Gift Shop has been a plant nursery for nearly 91 years, offering various classes, indoor and outdoor plants, and a gift shop of items both garden-related and just plain fun.
• Oceanview Books and Gifts is located at Mount Madonna Center, a 355 acre conference and retreat center focusing on yoga and intentional community.

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The Maku Furniture EcoShop is launching their online store, and wanted Sundrop Jewelry to be a part of it! The EcoShop carries organic and experiential products which support sustainable living at work, home, and in nature.

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The Craft Gallery, a laid back family-owned gift store in the seaside town of Capitola, CA, has recently added Sundrop Jewelry to their store! They carry ceramics and glass, bird feeders and toothbrush holders, wall art and accessories - all in all, an eclectic assortment of American-made arts and crafts.

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Other Materials
So far, we’ve concentrated on the impact of making a pair of Simple Earrings and getting them to the final customer - hopefully you . That’s reasonable, given that these earrings are by far our most popular items. However, other pieces of jewelry contain some additional materials we haven’t yet discussed.

Necklace Chains
Given that we know the silver in our earrings is more wasteful than any other component (paper, glass, printing or rubber), necklace chains are the elephant in the room. There are 0.54 grams of silver in a pair of Simple Earrings, but the 18″ (un-recycled) silver chain we used to use for pendants weighs just over 3 grams - that’s a lot of emissions and energy use from silver! That silver chain was also our most expensive material, forcing us to price our pendants higher than many people were willing to pay.

For all these reasons, we decided to switch away from sterling silver chains to silver colored Beadalon® cable. Coming soon: what I can find out about the environmental impact of Beadalon® cable.

Base Metal
The other additional materials in our pendants are the clasp, crimp bead, and crimp cover, all of which are made of ’silver-plated base metal’. I couldn’t find exact information about the base metal, but it is either brass, tin or copper. We’ll get into this in a later post as well.

Memory Wire & Beads
The last materials in our products are the memory wire and hematite beads used in our wine glass identifying charms. I’m going to have to do some research and get back to you on these two materials as well in future posts.

Surgical Stainless Steel
Our body jewelry uses surgical stainless steel findings. Stainless steel (even surgical stainless steel) contains 60-100% recycled content [PDF source] and is infinitely recyclable. The entire stainless steel industry emits 6.12 million tons CO2 per year while producing 25.9 million tons of stainless steel. Our stainless steel body jewelry findings weigh 0.95 grams per item. This means that for every 1000 pieces of body jewelry we make, roughly 0.52 lbs of CO2 are produced in making the stainless steel findings.

It looks like I’ve got lots of research to do.

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Hello to all our new visitors coming from Green LA Girl, and thanks for your interest! Take a look at some videos of our Sundrop-making process or find a store near you.

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I’m so excited - Sundrop Jewelry is now sold in the ExploraStore at the California Science Center in LA! The Center is huge, with an IMAX theater and free exhibits ranging from Biology to Inventions to Air and Space. On March 20th, they’ll be opening a whole new exhibit, Ecosystems, that will nearly double their total space. Definitely a place I want to go see the next time I’m in LA.

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For quite a while, I’ve been wanting to write about gardening, preserving, cooking, reducing energy use, frugality, and general sustainable living. That’s a lot of topics, I know, and I didn’t want to crowd out or overwhelm the sustainable business focus here on this blog.

A recent train of small events lead me to read “Save Three Lives” by Robert Rodale, founder of the Rodale Institute and Organic Gardening Magazine. Although the book is nearly 20 years old and I’m sure some of it is out of date, a large amount, sadly, is not. It was the final straw, with a call to action that caused me to actually write to all three branches of government (the Dept of Justice is starting an series of public workshops looking into antitrust and monopoly issues concerning our agriculture conglomerates this spring).

The book also tipped me over the edge and convinced me that I really did want to blog about all these things - I sat down and in a half hour had a list of post ideas more than a page long. Since then, more keep popping into my head or being sparked by other bloggers’ posts coming across my google reader list. So, I’m starting a new blog, Growing Home. Some posts you can look forward to seeing there:

• a series of at least one good recipe for each food coming out of the garden
• how to build self-watering containers
• donating to food pantries (I’ve always wondered whether it’s better to donate money or loss leader items from the grocery store)
• an update on the 90% reduction posts I did 3 years ago

If any of these subjects interest you, please visit me over at Growing Home! I also hope that having a gardening blog will help/force me to actually keep records of my gardening so I have a better idea what to do/not do in the future.

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