2012 Live Green CT Festival is this weekend!

http://www.livegreenct.com

Gumdrop Swap will be an exhibitor at this festival for the 3rd year! It takes place at Taylor Farms (near Calf Pasture Beach) in Norwalk, CT on the weekend of September 15-16, 2012. Here are photos from my tent in 2011. People assume Gumdrop Swap Children's and Maternity Boutique only sells used merchandise. That's so not true! We carry lots of new merchandise as well. Plenty of gift options available and I make custom gift baskets. 

I will have a booth for this 2 day festival to expose more people to Gumdrop Swap's unique spin on kids & maternity consignment. This unique service keeps the most important "green" (money) in your wallet. It's a FREE EVENT if you are on foot and $5 charge for each car to enter so if you must drive - carpool!

Do you have a business that is eco-friendly or family friendly? I highly recommend you being an exhibitor at this event. The organizers are very accommodating and organized. Live Green Connecticut gets better every year! They have entertainment, a kid's tent, food, discussions and of course a variety of vendors with products and services. Contact Daphne or Scot and make sure you mention Gabby from Gumdrop Swap sent ya!

Even if you can't come but you want to learn more about Connecticut's green movement, get involved or promote your green efforts (no matter where you live) you should to sign up for free at GreenTowns.com. Search by state and city to see what's going on in your area! 

Giving away a Reusable Canvas Tote Bag!

Earn up to 32 entries. Ends 6/30/12. GOOD LUCK! You will get one of these styles with a "green" theme.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Recyclebank is AWESOME & 2nd Annual Eco Kid Bash!

Get paid to recycle? Well, kinda. Everyone knows recycling is "good" but how many of us think its easier to trash something instead of finding a recycling bin? Would a monetary reward entice you to make a better effort to recycle everything you can? Recyclebank sure thinks so!

recyclebank logo

Recyclebank is working towards a world without waste by rewarding people for taking everyday green actions. It’s free to join and as easy as 1, 2, 3. Earn points for taking everyday green actions, redeem them for great rewards, and learn ways to save money and live greener every day!

I am such a fan of this company! And I appreciate their Primary Sponsorship of the FREE community event in my town of Bridgeport, CT on Saturday, May 19, 2012! The 2nd Annual Eco Kid Bash will take place, rain or shine, inside the historic Arcade Mall in downtown Bridgeport at 1001 Main St. Learn about local green efforts like BGreen 2020, the greening of our local public transportation GBT, crafts, seed planting, and more. The event takes place from 1pm-4pm. This event is brought to you by Gumdrop Swap and Pryceless Consulting with the support of the City of Bridgeport and DSSD (Downtown Special Services District). Learn more at http://EcoKidBash.com

Exhibiting at "Live Green CT" Norwalk, CT Sept 18-19 at Taylor Park!

 Just want to remind everyone that this is where I'll be this weekend. And I am excited to announce that there will be a special guest in my tent! Poor Me Teas' mission is to thoughtfully create herbal blends which inspire inner growth and balance. - To develop quality, flavorful herbal blends with strong organic standards. - To provide an educational website with information on Complementary Medicine methods such as herbology, chakra healing, energy medicine, and color healing. - To form relationships with other agencies who have the shared goal of accelerating the integration of Western and traditional holistic approaches of medicine, giving every individual access to care which incorporates the healing of the mind, body, emotions, and spirit.(click photo below to visit their site!

 I will have a booth for this 2 day festival to expose more people to Gumdrop Swap's unique spin on kids clothing consignment. 'Cause its basically recycling your children's wardrobe! And keeps the "green" (money) in your wallet. It's free if you are on foot and $5 charge for each car to enter so if you must drive - carpool! I will be giving away some memberships that day in random drawings. So come visit my booth!

Recycle Tutorial: Cereal Box mailer (borrowed from Sophisticate Style)

 Please go read this simple tutorial on Sophisticate Style's Blog on how to turn your empty cereal box into a mailer. Perfect for mailing your small crafts for you Etsy and craigslist sellers!

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Greener Giant?

I love to support other companies that make sustainability a priority. Green Giant is a brand we are all familiar with. I recently learned their initiative to be more eco-friendly for the next 50 years. Read about those efforts here. By making changes to their packaging and a large donation to the Nature Conservancy to encourage greener farming practices, they are setting an example for other corporations. I am not being compensated in any way to mention Green Giant. I'm sure this company doesn't know I exist. But if they ever discover this blog and want to send me some free veggies or coupons, I wouldn't turn it down :-)

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TerraCycle partners with Target for a Special Promotion

Special 2 Week Reward Promotion

 

Are you part of TerraCycle yet? Why not? It's free and easy to join and you can earn cash for your favorite charity or to support your child's school.  From now until May 8th, for every 5 Target plastic bags you (or anyone who is part of your collection team) send to TerraCycle, you will receive a coupon for $1.00 off any Target reusable bag. For program details, click here(PDF).

 

TerraCycle has teamed up with Target to help save our resources and continue TerraCycle's commitment to the environment by converting plastic shopping bags into reusable bags.

 

Happy Earth Month!

TerraCycle Brigades Team

 *Limit one coupon per household. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Customer Support at customersupport@terracycle.net or call 1.866.967.6776.

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Happy Earth Day!

Earth is our home. We grow our food here. Build dwellings and have families. I thank God for our planet. I was bothered by the amount of waste us earthlings produce. I started GumdropSwap as my contribution to conserving and reusing resources. I saw a need and created a solution. You would be amazed at the amount of children's clothing, shoes, books and "stuff" that ends up in our landfills. Just sitting there wasting when someone could be using it. That broke my heart. It wasn't easy to launch a new business. It's such a new way of living, I find myself explaining it over and over. People just aren't used to something "green" and good for you to save you money too. It sounds to good to be true I guess. But it took me over a year to try to solve the problems I saw with existing consignment/resale options. I approached my business model as a customer. People aren't used to that either. Big business tends to forget about customer satisfaction and focus on the bottom line in their financial report. I urge you to make small changes. Recycling more, reusing  more and encouraging your children to see value in things by using them in a new way (making a change jar or barrette holder out of an empty food container for instance). My boutique in Bridgeport, CT also serves as a collection point for empty CapriSun juice pouches. TerraCycle turns these and other product waste into new items for sale. Visit their site to see if they collect the wrappers or containers for the snacks your children love. They pay $0.02 for every recycled pouch which gets donated to the charity of your choice. I chose an Elementary School in my home state of Georgia.

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Get Paid to Recycle? Ka-Ching!

I know, I know. It sounds to good to be true. Most recyclers do it for our planet. But if the greater good of the world isn't motivation enough, maybe your family needs more of an incentive? Or maybe recycling your household waste is part of your routine or even required where you live. If so, kudos to you! My mayor is pushing the "greening" of my Connecticut city, and I applaud his efforts. I recently discovered a company called RecycleBank that rewards you for recycling by working through/with businesses and municipalities (your town or city). I used the contact us link to request that they contact my mayor because I want this in my city! If I understand the program it works like this: The city provides you with a special receptacle to put your recyclable items in. Your RecycleBank cart will be weighed each week upon pick-up. The weight will then be translated to RecycleBank Points. The more you recycle, the more your household can earn. In a few select communities, households earn rewards based on their equal share of the total amount that their entire community recycles. You earn reward points which you can use to shop with thousands of local and national retailers. You can search retailers by your zip code. There are some big names of national chains participating like Whole Foods, Rite Aid, and CVS...

I think this is such a cool program. I will keep everyone updated if I hear from my mayor or we get this implemented in Bridgeport. We already have weekly pickup but why not get rewarded for it and encourage people who aren't voluntarily participating an incentive to join in. I'm curious if anyone's city is already doing this and how they feel about the program? Please comment!

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A Work in Progress

When I started Gumdrop Swap, I expected to work out of a warehouse of sorts. I would fill internet orders and have limited contact with customers. But when I began telling local people about the business, they wanted to come see my inventory and drop of their items instead of sending through the mail. That made sense but I didn't have a presentable set-up. I was blessed that my husband's childhood friend had office space he wasn't using and offered it to me to save some overheard. My husband helped me purchase my initial merchandise from a kids store that went out of business. Once I added in donations from friends and family and the things I saved that my daughter no longer needed, I was ready to take customers.

After a few customers, I quickly realized that I was going to outgrow the borrowed space I was in. It was only a temporary anyway. I couldn't store my inventory at my home so I looked for a new office. I found that for what I would pay for sq footage for office space I could get a smaller retail space for about the same amount per month. This changed everything.

I had to change the business plan to be more retail. But I could now attract new customers by being more visible and accessible. I lived in Read's Artspace in downtown Bridgeport, CT for over 2 years so I was familiar with the area. They have worked to revitalize the once industrial and municipal zone into a thriving residential/retail area. I love historic architecture. After researching the developer, GDC, on BridgeportBuzz.com, I knew I wanted to be part of the Arcade Mall project. Only a few year prior, I could look out my bedroom window at the Artspace lofts and see the workers restoring the glass atrium ceiling. Now that natural sunlight will illuminate my storefront in a few weeks. It's amazing how things come full circle! They have chosen energy saving building materials and geo-thermal heating which supports my business' eco-friendly mission.

The bamboo flooring has been installed. The lighting is in and walls are waiting to be painted. We are ordering fixtures. Then the merchandise can be displayed. I expect to open in early March and cannot wait to write the next chapter!

This is the view from the back of store towards the front.

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GumdropSwap is on GreenMaven Search Engine!

GumdropSwap.com was accepted into the green directory on Jan 12, 2010! GreenMaven.com is the world's most comprehensive "green search engine" which allows users to search the Internet for trusted websites and news related to environmental and social values.

"People want to go green, but they often don't know where to start or even what questions to ask," says Joey Shepp, founder of Green Maven. "Green Maven makes searching for all things green as easy as using Google. If you search for socks, you get organic socks. If you search for cars, you get hybrid cars. Our mission is to make it easy for mainstream to go green."

Recognized in TIME.com's Top Ten List of Best New Websites of 2006, Green Maven uses Google's recently released Co-op Search technology to make searching fast, easy, and relevant.

"Going green has never been easier than with Green Maven," reports Lee Ettleman, TIME.COM. "Editors at the site hand-pick web pages and news items related to the environmental movement—about everything from eco-friendly cities to organic socks—that can then be searched using the Google tool on the homepage or browsed through using a directory."

Launched in late 2006 by a team of Green MBA graduates, Green Maven has reached a total of 5,000 websites since its launch. GreenMaven was designed with Open Source software by the leading sustainable website development firm, Earthsite.net, developers of Urth.tv and GreenFestivals.org.

Visitors can search on GreenMaven.com, or they can take the green web with them by installing an easy browser plug-in. Businesses who want their sites included in the green search engine can submit their URLs to Green Maven's team of editors for approval.

GreenMaven.com is responding to a growing segment of the Internet community searching for news, products and services that match their environmental and social values. By making it easy to "go green", GreenMaven.com is making a green lifestyle available to everyone.

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