Blog Posts by Stephanie King

An example of a beautiful silk shawl.

There is nothing more pleasing to the eye and touch than elegant silk. It's used for everything from apparel and purses to table linens and window coverings. But did you know that creating the sumptuous fabric involves cruelty to the tiny, beautiful creature that produces the silk?

The cocoons of commercially farmed silk, which accounts for the majority of silk production worldwide, are harvested before the silk worm metamorphoses into a moth or butterfly. The caterpillar pupae are killed by either sticking a needle in the cocoon or dropping it into boiling water. After they're killed, the silk is harvested.

Fair trade cruelty-free silk, however, isn't harvested until after the moth has flown off. The silk worms are cultivated on forest trees, fed by the women who eventually weave the

Artisans working.

fabric. They spin the thread from the broken cocoons, giving a textured look to the yarn and the weave. The wild silk is lustrous and soft, with a natural golden color.

Being kind to

Read More »from Fair Trade Silk: Exquisite and Cruelty-Free

Women of the Masaai Tribe, KenyaIn 2001, most of Kenya was hit hard by a prolonged drought. It forced the men of the Masaai tribe to take their cattle, the main source of income, far away from their temporary settlements in search of water and pastures. This created a tremendous hardship for the women and children left behind, who had little to support themselves.

Wanting to help, Philip and Katy Leakey created a drought-resistant and regular source of fair trade income for the women. They teach them to create jewelry from the chopped and dried stems of a Kenyan grass. They assemble kits containing everything needed to make jewelry-the grass beads, elastic, and tools-and bring them to the Masaai settlements.

Zulugrass BraceletThe women sit together under the trees and string the beads into necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Though the process fits the traditional Masaai lifestyle, the "Zulugrass" jewelry is contemporary and colorful, designed to accessorize any wardrobe from sporty to elegant.

Repurposing the grass into

Read More »from The Grass is Green for Kenyan Women

Artisans making Tree-Free paper.

Frank Lloyd Wright, the renowned architect, once said: "The best friend on Earth of man is the tree."

What better way to treat our best friend than to conserve it?
Fair trade does exactly that by only selling stationery crafted from tree-free materials.

One of the primary sources for creating fair trade stationery products is the lokta bush, an easily regenerated plant native to the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal. The shrubs grow in remote areas where jobs are scarce, so paper production is typically the sole source of income for the mountain inhabitants.

A sampling of Tree-Free stationaryThe paper-making process starts by stripping the bark from the bush, boiling it for hours, and spreading the resulting pulp on a large, framed screen to dry in the sun. The large sheets are then cut into sizes appropriate for journals, writing paper, note cards, and more.

Nepalese fair trade artisans add flair to the papers by dying them with vegetable dyes, inlaying the pages with flower petals, and adding

Read More »from Man’s Best Friend (Woman’s, Too)

Bottles to be recycled into beads.

Every month, we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper! A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -- and even longer if it's in the landfill.

With all this waste, it's good to know that fair trade artisans in Kenya are turning thousands of discarded bottles into beautiful pieces of jewelry. They clean the bottles and melt them in a furnace, then spin the liquid into beads on a metal rod. Blending the beads with silver accents, these skilled artisans string them into contemporary, elegant jewelry. This fair trade work earns them about 5 times more than the average wage in Kenya.

Necklace made from recycled bottles

If you care about the environment, consider wearing this eco-friendly jewelry. Taking a stand never looked so good!

Stephanie King
Fair Trade DesignsRead More »from Bottles to Beads—Fair Trade Jewelry is Good for the Earth

How do old magazines and calendars end up lifting Kenyan and Ugandan women out of poverty? By being transformed into trendy and colorful fair trade beaded jewelry.

Recycled PaperThe women cut long, triangle-shaped strips from the paper and roll them up tightly then apply a non-toxic sealant.

When the beads are dry, the women string them into beautiful jewelry, each piece unique to the individual artisan who created it.

Both Kenya and Uganda have suffered devastating droughts, drying up pastures and the income cattle generated. To make up for the lost income, many of the women crushed rocks by hand, barely eking out a living.

Recycled Paper

Now, these women earn five to seven times more as fair trade employees. Instead of sitting on rock piles, they work in the comfort of their homes, homes they bought themselves with their income. They can rest at night, knowing there will be food on the table the next morning for their children.

Reducing waste, reducing poverty, raising hopes and dreams-all

Read More »from Recycled Paper Becomes Beads of Hope

Fair Trade Designs

What do fair trade jewelry, South American rainforests and African elephants have in common? The latter two are disappearing at critical rates while some fair trade jewelry is helping to restore both.

"Slash and burn" agricultural techniques are destroying rainforests, replaced by cattle ranches and banana plantations. Despite an international ban on the sale of ivory, illegal poaching of elephant tusks has brought the elephant population to near extinction.

But a palm nut, about as big as an avocado pit, is helping to alleviate in a small way both of these devastating problems. The tagua ("tah-gwah") nut is the dried seedpod of the Tagua Palm, a native of South American tropical forests. Because of its similarities to ivory, it is carved into uniquely beautiful necklaces, earrings, bracelets and more.

Fair Trade Designs

One Tagua Palm yields up to 50 pounds of nuts a year, about the same weight as an average elephant tusk. Because the nuts are typically harvested from the seed

Read More »from How a Nut is Saving Rainforests and Elephants