Greener option for jeweler, a New Year resolution

It's been about 3 weeks from 2009. What is your resolution?
Mine... I'm going greener.

Going green, is not only good for the environment, it's also help makes the artist feels good about them and helps makes customer feels good about their purchase.

I believe that we borrow the world from our children so we have to take care of it. In addition to preaching my children about going green, I have been looking for chemical alternatives in jewelry making .

Here are a few tips I got pick along those years in making jewelry.

1. Use fresh squeeze lime instead of store bought pickle. ( I learned this from Jusuf Baba). Pickle you bought from stores are usually contains Sodium Bisulfate. Lime is easier on the environment. Put the lime in a caserole bowl, add some water and put it on low heat. The down side is the the lime could go bad. Which means you need more fresh limes. The good thing is, if you got too much lime, you can always make mojitos or margaritas with it.

2. Use Dawn soap instead of burnishing compound for tumblers. (I learned this from Bob Mitchell)
I use vibratory tumbler with mixed steel shot for cleaning and burnishing. Yes, using the store bought burnishing compound is faster. But I feel better using dish washing soap than chemicals.
As always, if I'm running out of dish washing soap, I could always go to my studio for soap.

3. Use egg instead of LOS ( Liver of Sulfur) to give black patina. (I learned this from the web)

4. Use baking soda to clean silver. ( I learned this from the web)

5. When you need to buy a sterling sheet, try looking for a company that recycle sterling rather than mining it. ( I learned this from Susan Marie)

6. Use milk to clean pearls. I learned this from a lady who stop by my booth. She said just soak the pearl in the milk...
I also found this website that talks about cleaning pearls. It also talks about soaking the pearls in boiling milk for 15 minutes with scrape soap or cheese on it... hm.. I probably eat the cheese ...

If you have something to add on or more detail instructions, please leave a comment or contact me. I will add more to the list for the world to share...

Have fun...