Wahoo! Fair Trade Gemstones

You've probably noticed that the stones I use aren't the average, run of the mill stones you find at the jewelry counter of say, Macy's. I've really steered away from using them because as I researched a little more about where these beautiful stones all come from, there was a long trail of social and environmental destruction hiding behind them.

So I decided to go with stones where I knew where they were coming from, I've met the people cutting them, and I know that they're doing as little damage in their mining process as possible (yeah, if you look into the mining process for a lot of this stuff...ooh it's not pretty. Makes you want to wear nothing but bamboo). But, I really miss working with the standards like Amethyst and Moonstone. But I've found a great source for the oldies but goodies. I pay a premium for them, but I assume if you're shopping on this site, you're not really someone who picks up their jewelry from WalMart. Now I need to find a greener source for my silver. I'm not sure if you've ever seen a silver mine, but man they are not pretty. At least there's a very high re-use and recycle rate for it since it's a precious metal. If you'd like more info on fair trade gems...shoot me an email. Happy New Year! Toby