Archive for August, 2009

The Green Jewelry Design Resource Guide [The Green Guide]:
A Resource Guide for Designers & Consumers
by Andrea Acailawen
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In my article, Going Green: Responsible Packaging & Shipping Decisions at Handmade News [HMN], I discuss easy ways to make more environmentally responsible packaging and shipping decisions that are not only better for the environment, but can save your business money, too.

The Green Jewelry Design Resource Guide [The Green Guide]:
A Resource Guide for Designers & Consumers
by Andrea Acailawen
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The latest article in my column in the GreenWise department at Handmade News (HMN), Write a Green Marketing Plan to Grow Your Eco-Friendly Business focuses on how environmentally responsible designers and artisans can effectively market their work as “green” in a market where the term is being thrown around by many as “just another catch phrase.” Today, it isn’t enough to simply say that you run a “green” or “eco-friendly” business. After all, without a proper context, these terms are merely catchy words. It is how these words defines you, your business and your design practices, that set your apart from others looking to get a little mileage out of a popular trend.

The Green Jewelry Design Resource Guide [The Green Guide]:
A Resource Guide for Designers & Consumers
by Andrea Acailawen
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The second article in my column in the GreenWise department at Handmade News (HMN), Going Green: The Importance of Fair Trade Materials discusses the importance of using fair trade materials when handcrafting green products for the consumer. It also covers some of the challenges we face when trying to ensure that those raw and manufactured materials we incorporate into our work are ethically sourced.

For those committed to eco-friendly, green designs, the use of fair trade materials in the design process is more than just desirable; its necessary. Unfortunately, this is also an area that is often-times illusive. While I provided a short list of organizations that promote fair trade mining and manufacturing relative to the jewelry industry, the article is merely a foundational starting point. It is by no means comprehensive. My goal is to create a much more comprehensive fair trade materials resource list here in The Green Guide that will expand and grow over time as more information, and resources, become available.

The Green Jewelry Design Resource Guide [The Green Guide]:
A Resource Guide for Designers & Consumers
by Andrea Acailawen
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In my column in the GreenWise department at Handmade News (HMN) you’ll find an article on going green as a jewelry artisan. Going Green: Eco-Friendly Design for the Jewelry Artisan is meant to help jewelry designers & artisans become more environmentally responsible and make their studios greener. At the same time, it provides a good checklist of questions that environmentally conscious consumers can use to determine if the artisans they buy handcrafted jewelry from are, in fact, green.

I decided to create a green jewelry design resource section here in The Buzz at Acailawen Designs as a companion guide to the article I wrote for my column at HMN. The Green Jewelry Design Resource Guide [The Green Guide] is aimed at providing useful resources that can help designers become more green, while also arming the eco-minded consumer with enough information about green design to make environmentally wise jewelry buying decisions. I will add various resources, tips, checklists and more to make these processes easier.

Additionally, as a GreenWise columnist, I will continue to provide more articles on green design, as well as green living, on the Handmade News website. If there is a green jewelry design topic of particular interest you would like to see covered in an upcoming article, or you have a question I may be able to help you with, please leave a comment below.