Win It Wednesday

Welcome to Win It Wednesday!! The winner of the Converse Shoes from Spunky Monkey is #17 Anne . Congrats!

This week I am giving away a $30 Gift Certificate to the Andean Collection. You may have seen them on The Gift Closet before & remember their gorgeous jewelry!

Amanda Judge founded The Andean Collection in the fall of 2008 while she was in Ecuador researching rural women’s survival strategies in the face of extreme poverty for her master thesis. The point of her research was to settle on a few tangible projects that an outside agency could do in order to help the community make long lasting improvements in their own standards of living. As it turns out, instead of just writing about these possibilities, Amanda decided to put her own ideas into action.

After discovering the amazing natural materials that were used in native jewelry making, Amanda knew that finding a market for jewelry made out of these natural seeds would be more beneficial than any academic paper could ever be. Amanda then extended her stay in Ecuador to lay the groundwork for The Andean Collection. The first task was to find disadvantaged artisans who had a drive to create a better life for themselves and their families. Next was training the artisans on order production and of course, showing them how to use email. Since the beginning, The Andean Collection has been training the artisans is jewelry design, helping them fortify their supply chains, and let’s not forget the endless cross-continent goose chases to find the highest quality raw materials in South America.

Artisans handcraft their designs from natural seeds that have been sustainably harvested from the rainforests and lowlands of South America. The commercialization of these seeds helps to ensure the survival of the world’s rainforests by providing an alternative income for its inhabitants rather than logging or selling their land to destructive industries. Through a very manual process, seeds are transformed into beads with gorgeous natural irregularities, both in color and form, which truly makes each piece one of a kind.

Want It? Click here to visit Andean Collection.

Win It! How to enter to win the $30 Gift Certificate to Andean Collection:
1. Leave a comment here & be sure to include your email address if it is not on your profile. Winners will only be contacted via email.
2. For an EXTRA entry, click on the button below, come back here & tell me one of the companies you see listed on my Christmas @ the Gift Closet page.
3. Contest ends Tuesday November 17, 2009 @ midnight.

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