Celebrate Green Blog

by Lynn and Corey

It isn’t often that you run into someone who has either invented or brought to light, a very different process for making something. That’s why we were excited when we first read about Sundrop Jewelry.

This company offers gorgeous earrings, necklaces and wine glass charms, made from recycled glass. Maybe not so unusual.

But they do it by the melting old bottles and stained glass using a giant lens that focuses heat from the sun’s rays.

Now that’s unique!

Tawny Reynolds and her husband are partners in the company with the original Sundrop Jewelry inventor and his wife, but none of the others is currently involved in the day-to-day business. All the jewelry is made by Tawny and three part-time employees.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, weather constraints around melting glass means they can work only on sunny days. (Good thing they don’t live in Seattle!)

1. As you explain on your website, “I melt glass into Sundrops in my NE Minneapolis backyard, using a three foot tall magnifying glass (technically a fresnel lens) to focus sunlight, which can produce a ‘hot spot’ reaching 3,000 degrees!” How did you get the idea to do such a thing?

To our knowledge, no one else uses a process or setup like ours. My friend and co-owner invented the technique when he was 13 or 14 growing up in Alaska. He was messing around with melting beach sand, rocks, and glass using this giant lens, and thought the little glass droplets were kind of cool. Someone suggested he could make them into jewelry, and the rest, as they say, is history.

2. Why is it important to you to use recycled materials in your work?

It is my goal for Sundrop Jewelry to be more than just a company making beautiful handmade jewelry. I also want people to show off our jewelry as an example of the amazing things that can be done with less—less trash from glass bottles we melt down and repurpose, less toxic waste spewed into the environment when virgin silver is mined, less deforestation and wastewater used for making paper, and less emissions from electricity we avoid using. Best of all, all that ‘less’ somehow adds up to ‘more’ – more forests and wilderness, more clean air and water, more beauty in the world. And it makes for a good story anyone can use to help spread the word when someone asks, “Where did you get those earrings?”

3. In what other ways do you incorporate sustainability in your business?

In addition to using at least partially recycled glass, silver, paper and cardboard in our jewelry, display, and shipping materials, we use two types of energy. On clear sunny days, we use direct solar energy to melt glass using sunshine concentrated by three-foot tall magnifying lenses, while our jewelry studio is powered using wind energy. We do our best to minimize packaging for both shipping and in-store displays, reducing not only materials used, but also the energy necessary to transport our jewelry to stores and customers.  And last but not least, most of us at Sundrop Jewelry bike to our studio or work from home, reducing gas usage and emissions.

If you would like to see the beautiful selection of jewelry Tawny offers, please visit Sundrop Jewelry.

Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of  Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.