Mother’s Day Gift Ideas

Mother’s Day takes place on the 22nd March this year. If you’re stuck for gift ideas and want to give something other than flowers and chocolates, look no further. Here’s some suggestions for you:-

The Pink Button Necklace is made by Tara Projects and is £11.95. 

The Recycled Glass Hurricane lamp is made in Delhi and is a very reasonable £7.99. 

The Jewellery Wrap is ideal for keeping jewellery safe either at home or on trips away.  Its made by a Touch of India and is made up of different compartments and is priced at £9.99.

Finally, one of my favourites, is the gorgeous Vase with Black and White Swirl.  Made in Peru by Allpa, a lovely feature is that the artist has signed the base. Priced at £19.95.

And don’t forget we have some pretty, printed cards as well as gift bags. Visit the website for inspiration.

New Year’s Resolutions

With Christmas slowly fading to a memory, you may well find that your New Year’s resolutions will go the same way. According to a recent survey by Sky Real Lives (found through my daily binge on Sky news), green issues feature highly in people’s resolutions but 70% of those expected failure on their part.

Personally, I recommend not calling, or thinking of them, as resolutions. It guarantees failure in my books and those of many other people I know! Look on them as lifestyle changes and rather than trying to implement them all in one go, why not try and make a change every few weeks? If you make a small change here and there you won’t notice it so much and before you know it you’ll be well on your way.

So, what sort of changes am I talking about? It’s well reported that people are becoming more and more aware of living an ethical lifestyle and taking care of the environment. After years of living in a built up town, I now live in the countryside and I think the peacefulness of it, along with the wildlife surrounding me have had a positive influence and have definitely made me more aware of my environment.

Without sounding too self-righteous, here are a few suggestions that you could use to get started both in the home and at work. They aren’t all fair trade related but I’ll continue to add to this in the future (sorry about that!):-

1. Fair trade food.  With the amount of choice and availability increasing there’s bound to be something you love. Why not try and switch some of your “standard” brands to fair trade? Tea, coffee, chocolate, fruit, drinks, sugar, nuts, snacks…….. even if you switch one or two brands, you will know that the farmer and workers who have produced it have received a fair price and work in fair conditions. 
2. Fair trade gifts and items for the home. Well, this is an obvious one to come from me I’m afraid. Although I’ve been up and running for a few months now, I’m still encountering people who aren’t quite sure of fair trade.  Honestly, the quality is fantastic, the prices are nowhere near as expensive as you might think and it’s readily available! 
3. Support your local farmers. I dislike the way supermarket fruit and veg is all the same size and colour. They should be natural and that’s what you’ll find in farm shops. We also make full use of a local butcher where the meat is slaughtered on site and prepared to your order. There’s hardly any ever excess fat nor the watery excess that comes from some supermarket meat. 
4. Use recycled stationery. Refill and/or recycle your ink cartridges.
5. Reduce your paper usage – email where possible. Reuse all scrap paper.
6. Don’t leave electrical items on standby. So what if it only emits a small amount of energy? It all adds up. This is a big bug bear for me as it’s so wasteful. I’m always going around after people turning things off, it probably annoys them but I continue to do it!
7. Use low energy light bulbs. Save some pennies and the environment. Enough said!
8. Avoid excess packaging. Where possible I try to keep all fruit and veg loose and I try to check packaging on other items I use. This isn’t always possible to do but worth trying.
9. Following on from the packaging – ditch the plastic and switch to a reusable bag. Our cotton bags fold up tightly and will fit into your pocket/handbag easily so you won’t be caught short.  
10. Recycle! In our area, we’re extremely lucky that we don’t have to sort through all of our recycling. All tins, plastic, glass, cardboard, paper etc goes into one bin. Definitely makes life a lot easier for us.There are a huge amount of fabulous gifts available made from recycled items. Why not check them out? We have a selection of items made from recycled materials and there are many more widely available on the web.
11. Turn off the tap and conserve water. Need I expand?
12. Following on from above, only boil the water you need. I’m using the Tefal Quick Cup which heats the exact amount of water you require at 95 degrees celsius in 3 seconds.
13. eBay! Anyone that knows me will say I’m a bit of an eBay addict. I know it’s often seen as a way to pass time (skiving at work!), but its also a great way to recycle unwanted gifts, old furniture, clothes, books – pretty much anything! Not only that but it’s a great way of earning a bit of cash!

That should get you going.

Blogroll – Boutiko

There’s a new link in the Blogroll. Visit Boutiko for beautiful gifts with an ethical twist. I’d just like to take the opportunity to say good luck to it’s founder Tara, who I know has put everything she has, emotionally and physically, into making it what it is.

Party Plan

 

 

Some people can still be very cynical about fair trade. That was one of my concerns when setting up the party plan. What if there was no interest? What if people didn’t like the items or thought they were too expensive? What if no one showed up? (I can’t think of anything worse).

Although I had those niggling concerns, as the old saying goes “you never know unless you try” and so I have, or should I say, I am trying. With the run up to Christmas I’m sure people will be looking for gifts and may well be looking for something unique.

My first party took place a week ago and whilst I was rather nervous I’m pleased to say it was a great success. There’s something quite nerve wracking about showing off your business for the first time after all the time and effort put in to setting things up!

My hostess was extremely friendly and put me straight at ease. Everyone was pleasantly surprised at how good the quality of the items was and couldn’t believe how reasonably priced everything was. At the start of the party I told everyone a little bit about myself and Only Fair, I gave a little bit of information about fair trade and then picked out a few of the more interesting items and explained about how they were made and the people behind them. I decided to keep things short and sweet so that people could ask more if they had any questions or read through the information I had provided. Thankfully everyone listened to me speak, asked questions and appeared to show a lot of interest.

One of the things that surprised everyone at the party is how a lot of the materials are recycled. For example we have the cards recycled with cogon grass and the patchwork cushions made with recycled saris. I would like to think it opened peoples’ eyes a little bit more to what can be achieved by recycling.

At the moment I am limited about where I can take party bookings but this may well change in the coming months. Visit the party page on the website for further details. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like to book a party – I don’t bite!