Handmade in Washington state, real butterfly wings are preserved and encased in resin using a proprietary process. Our butterflies are sourced from butterfly farms - supporting small indigenous communities that sustain themselves by butterfly farming, that in turn helps to conserve vulnerable jungles and forests. Earring wires and pendant bails are sterling silver. Ships packaged on cards, with artist info postcards and brochure explaining butterfly farming. Butterfly Farming Have you ever been to one of the butterfly houses where a real butterfly might sit on you? These places do not have their own breeding programs and generally cannot raise their own butterflies. They have contracts with butterfly farms - many small, family-owned farms are in in the Amazon jungles. A family will physically net off a section of the rainforest. Perhaps an acre, or more, or less. They go out into the jungle and collect butterfly eggs off the back of the leaves of trees and plants. They bring these into their enclosure and take care of them. They feed them their favorite diet and protect them from diseases and predators. This tends to result in a much larger than natural butterfly kindergarten. Once the caterpillars wrap themselves into cocoons, the workers will collect some, wrap them up very carefully, and ship them off to the butterfly houses by a courier such as FedEx. The rest of the caterpillars turn into butterflies inside the farm and start the process all over again - portion of these are released back into the jungle, while the rest stay inside the farm and lay eggs there. In numerous studies it has been reported that the process of butterfly farming leads to increases in wild butterfly populations. Did you know that the average lifespan of a butterfly is less than 20 days? We get our deceased butterflies through US insect brokers. This industry is tightly controlled by the Fish and Wildlife service, to ensure that only non-endangered and healthy specimen are imported into the US. Therefore, the butterflies used in our jewelry are "end of life" butterflies - those that have completed their natural life cycle on the farms. ABOUT OUR PROCESS Real butterfly wings and pressed flowers encased in crystal-clear, glass-hard jeweler's grade resin. Over the years, we have developed a proprietary process of multiple resin coatings, resulting in a shiny piece that is lightweight, yet feels substantial when you handle it. This is NOT laminated jewelry - you may have seen that before. For the process, we use the wings only. Multiple coats of resin are applied. You cannot see from the single item photo that the butterfly piece is reversible - because of the way they camouflage themselves in nature, they look different from the other side (when they close their wings on landing). Each item is carded on a folded/tented card that includes information about how to reverse the earrings, and short description of how we source the butterflies.
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