Happy Stories From our customers

We’re all about keeping it simple. And this video gives a ton of good advice on simplicity and style, including the importance of monochrome colors (with delicate accessories) and even the dated but still applicable advice of matching shoes and handbags.

With decorative back

Before you go through the trying ordeal of having a ring cut off of your finger, think of bringing down the swelling in a finger first (obvious, right?).

First, don’t panic. Most stuck ring situations are remedied fairly easily. This means: stop pulling and yanking. Instead, take a deep breath and try these solutions first:

Try an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medication, especially if your swollen finger was caused by an injury. This helps reduce pain and inflammation.

OR:

Fill a small tub or basin with a mixture of water and ice and set it somewhere higher than head level (like the top of a fridge, for instance) .

Raise your arm above your head for five minutes. This will naturally aid the fluid and blood drainage out of your hand.

Place your hand into the ice water for ten minutes. Your hand should still be elevated considerably above the level of your heart while it rests in the ice water.

How does this work: the cold constricts blood vessels,  which further reduces swelling and makes it easier to remove any rings stuck on your finger.

Still struggling with it? 

A little oil rubbed on and around the ring will help!

Here’s some staggering facts about plastic use:

• 160,000 plastic bags are used globally every second!
• 5 trillion plastic bags are produced yearly. Side by side, they can encircle the world 7 times.
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a floating landfill of garbage in the Pacific twice the size of Texas, is mostly composed of plastic.
• In 2008, a sperm whale was found beached in California. It died due to the more than 22 kilos of plastic found in its stomach.
• Plastic will only start degrading after 700 years and will only fully degrade in 1000 years. This means that all the plastic that has ever been produced has not degraded yet.
• Plastic bags remain toxic even after it breaks down. It doesn’t biodegrade, it photo-degrades. It means that after it degrades, it breaks down into smaller and smaller toxic bits of itself – and bleeds and contaminates the environment.
• An average family will use 60 plastic bags on four visits to the supermarket.
• Only 1 to 3% of plastic bags are recycled worldwide.
• Plastic bags cause the death of many marine animals when they are mistaken for food.

Which is why we tip our hats off to Rachel Kippen who has created jewelry from “items she finds during cleanups and wants to keep out of a landfill including bread clips, straws, plastic monopoly game pieces, bingo chips and scotch tape rolls.” [Santa Cruz Sentinel]

According to Kippen:

“These are items that have no end of life cycle plan. They cannot be downcycled like other plastics and they end up either going straight to the landfill or are a persistent waste item on our beaches and in our oceans,” she said. “Unweaving and untangling it from the earth also made me think about weaving it back together and symbology around that,” she said.