We found this great eco-friendly blog post with an article about ‘butterfly wish bouquets’. Once we got to reading, we discovered a phenomenon that truly wowed us: the release of hundreds of butterflies during a wedding ceremony! According the website, the butterfly release is clean, safe, and environmentally friendly. And also, fun and elegant. We dig it. What do you think?

“The success of those dinosaurs at TLC has turned my workshop into somewhat of a dino factory as of late.  They start off on a sheet of paper and are then glued onto silver sheet.  Once the glue has set, it’s time to break out the jewelers saw.”

Amy can also turn her sheets of 14K gold into our other 2 dino necklace designs: T-Rex and Triceratops.  These prehistoric beauties are only available through Turtle Love Co.

To read more about Amy, check out her fun-to-read blog here.

We just got back from a field trip to the New England Products Trade Show where we saw Chaya Caron!  She was all aglow and told us about an article the Portland Press Herald just wrote about the show (but it was mostly about her).

She has an innovative design process using  recycled sterling silver to create “ethically sourced jewelry” out of her studio in South Portland.

Read the full article here.

If you would like to share your wedding engagement too, email us.

Here’s Nancy and Scott’s story . . .

“Last February I took my then-boyfriend, Scott, to the Turks & Caicos. We traveled to one of the smaller islands, North Caicos, for a week’s vacation to celebrate his 50th birthday. After we arrived at our small hotel we enjoyed a delicious lobster dinner with a complimentary bottle of champagne that awaited us. After dinner we went for a walk on the completely empty, moonlit beach. It was so lovely. We walked about a quarter mile enjoying the sights and sounds of a tropical night before taking a seat on the beach. The moon was full, accompanied by Jupiter high in the sky. Scott took a moment to kneel down in front of me, pulled a jewelry box out of his pocket and said, ‘With Jupiter as my witness, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?’ Of course I said yes! And because the beach was empty, we stripped off our clothes off and baptized our union in the ocean right then and there. It was wonderful.

Our story is even more romantic than this, though.  Scott and I were on the gymnastics team together in high school. He had a major crush on me. At the time, I told him that I ‘liked’ him, but I didn’t ‘like like’ him.

It took twenty-five years and an email out of the blue from me to him to get us together and realize that we’re soul mates. I’m a very lucky girl.”

Turtle Love Co. really loves Scott and Nancy’s story – the Turks & Caicos sounds especially great right about now (we got snow for the first time in a month yesterday and we’d forgotten how cold Maine winters it can be!)

Pictures used with permission from Tamara McFarland from McFarlandDesigns.com

Turtle Love Committee: What is your favorite place in the whole wide world?
Maggie: The beach. Any beach. Preferably one that occupies the same space as 80 degree weather!

TLC: Childhood ambition?
M: I had an opportunity to study abroad in Siberia when I was in high school. Ever since then I’ve been determined to see as much of the world as I possibly can.

TLC: Current ambition?
M: In one and a half years I’ll have completed my course of study for licensure in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. My goal is to make Chinese medicine affordable and accessible to as many people as possible.

TLC: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
M: I’d pay off the student loans that my husband and I have accumulated over the course of almost twenty-five years of schooling. I’d also invest in organizations and institutions that are promoting health care accessibility, holistic care, and sustainable health care practices.

TLC: Who is your partner?
M: My partner is a healer, a gentleman, a hunk, a romantic, a comedian, a scholar and my husband.

TLC: How did you and your partner decide to get married?
M: We couldn’t imagine life without the other and we wanted to share our commitment with our friends and family.

TLC: What does your wedding/engagement/commitment ring look like?
M: They’re beautiful, simple, honest, ethical and eco-friendly! My engagement ring is a moissonite set in recycled sterling silver (moissonite is a stone that was originally discovered in a meteorite; it’s since been replicated in a lab and is similar in hardness to diamond) and we affectionately refer to it as my “space diamond!” My wedding ring is made with lab-created rubies also set in recycled sterling silver.

TLC: What do you think about your ring(s)?
M: When we knew we were going to get married we considered not exchanging rings at all (for a variety of reasons). It was challenging to find a local, eco-friendly jeweler, so we were pretty excited to discover Tamara McFarland’s work. She created a custom design based on our input and her style. I was so thrilled to have such a unique ring that really represented who we are as a couple.

TLC: What’s your favorite color?
M: This totally depends on the context, although pumpkin orange is always a safe bet.

TLC: Pets?
M: We live in a small apartment in San Francisco which doesn’t allow pets, but we’ve already named our future cat (Bubbles) and our future dog (Meatball).

TLC: What are you passionate about?
M: Healing. Travelling. Love. Baking. Lists (although I’m trying to wean myself from them). The beach. Creativity. Art Nouveau. Coconuts. Elvis.

TLC: What is the last book you read?
M: “The Time Traveller’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger.

TLC: Favorite beverage?
M: Coconut milk, hands-down!

TLC: What is your favorite physical feature?
M: I don’t have a favorite physical feature, but in terms of my personality, I’m grateful for my ability to see the positive aspects in any situation. I think I inherited that from my grandfather.

If you would like to tell us about your super cool ring for our blog, we would love to hear about it!

Feel free to email us!

If you would like to share your story too, email us!

Here is Elizabeth and Ed’s story . . .

“My husband and I fell in love on our first actual date. We lived in different cities and met on a chairlift at a ski mountain. On our second date, he asked me what my plans were for the summer (this was late April and he was a school teacher with summers off). I responded that I was headed to Tibet. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked in return. ‘If I have to go half way around the world to be with you,’ he answered, ‘then I guess that’s what I’m doing.’

Three months later he joined me on a two-week horse pack trip across the Eastern Tibetan plateau where he proposed to me on a mountaintop overlooking a monastery at around 14,000 feet. He had picked up a ring while we were en route through Hong Kong and kept it hidden in his saddle bag until the time was right, about half way through our trip. He was pretty nervous watching that saddle bag during one particularly deep river ford where the horses had to swim! The ring was too big so I did a ‘field dressing’ of duct tape around the inside so that I could wear it right away.

(This photo was taken in July, 1999, at about 12,000 feet on the eastern Tibetan plateau, to celebrate our engagement earlier that afternoon. Those are authentic Tibetan robes and finery – we were adorned by our Tibetan guide and his spouse in their own ornaments. On the hillside behind us is a sprawling Tibetan monastery and town.)”

What a glorious tale of true love! Elizabeth Yarnell is a cookbook author and natural health expert. She invented an earth-friendly, back-to-basics cooking method for one-pot meals (her technique layers whole foods into a Dutch oven and flash-cooks it all for a meal in 30-45 minutes). You can check out her website GloriousOnePotMeals.com!

Turtle Love Committee: What’s your favorite place in the whole wide world?
Melissa: I think I was a mermaid in a previous life because I love the sea so much! My favorite places to go “be one” with the waves are Bermuda and Oregon’s coast. Both are absolutely beautiful but in very different ways.

TLC: Childhood ambition?
M: I wanted to be a world famous mystery writer.

TLC: Current ambition?
M: Making a decent living doing something I love and believe in with a flexible schedule that allows me to spend time with those I love. That’s the reason I started Emerald Events & Weddings, my very own eco-friendly event planning business. I help clients save the planet while they throw amazing parties and events, AND, I can still make it to my niece’s school play! That makes for a happy Melissa!

TLC: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
M: Half would go to charities I support like the Cystic Fibrosis foundation and Heifer International; with the other half I’d pay off all my family’s debts, buy everyone a new car, and maybe a second home near the beach for me!

TLC: Who is your partner?
M: Erich is the love of my life. I went through a LOT of frogs before finding my prince! He’s a techie with a wicked sense of humor, is one of the smartest men I know, and can cook gourmet meals like nobody’s business!

TLC: How did you and your partner decide to get married?
M: It was a surprise to both of us actually. We were sitting on our couch one night and I was upset that I’d been so busy I hadn’t been able to spend much time with him that week. He told me that was okay, “because we had the rest of our lives to be together.” He then took a deep breath and said “Will you marry me?” I asked him “Are you sure?!” about forty times before saying yes! It turned out that he’d actually planned to propose to me after the New Year when things calmed down, but his proposal ended up being completely spur of the moment and I loved the fact that it was so spontaneous.

TLC: What does your wedding/engagement/commitment ring look like?
M: I have a white gold ring with a lab created emerald-cut emerald with several small diamonds on each side. The front and back of the ring have lacework which allows light to shine through the emerald at all times.

TLC: What do you think about your ring(s)?
M: love it because it’s not cookie cutter in any sense of the word and it’s definitely a “me” ring. Since the diamonds and emerald are lab-created, I didn’t add to the destruction and suffering caused by mining those gems in the wild, which was important to both Erich and myself.

TLC: What are you passionate about?
M: My passions include time with my family and friends, traveling to exotic destinations, writing my how-to-books for greening events and gardening in our backyard. We raise hops (Erich homebrews beer) as well as vegetables, herbs, and heirloom flowers.

TLC: What is the last book you read?
M: Diana Mott Davidson’s “Fatally Flaky.” Her heroine, Gold,y is a caterer who, like me, is spunky, from Colorado and just a bit fluffy. She writes well and also includes several wonderful recipes in each murder mystery which I love to try out!

TLC: Sweetest indulgence?
M: Port and dark chocolate with my honey in front of a roaring fire.

TLC: What is your favorite physical feature?
M: I love my smile and it’s a good thing because I do that a lot!

If you would like to tell us about your super cool ring, we’d love to write about it!

Feel free to email us!

“My (now) husband and I volunteer on stage crew at the Calgary Folk Festival.  One year an artist, Ndidi Onukwulu, performed many times on our stage and we just loved her music and her personality – she was very kind and fun with the volunteers (not all performers are).

In late 2006 we saw she was going to be touring so we bought tickets for her show for us and my two sons from a past marriage.

My then-boyfriend emailed her reps and her booking agents to see if she would help him propose to me at the concert.  Some of her people were adamant that it wasn’t going to happen, but others were willing to work something out.

So there we were, in the Jack Singer Concert Hall with 2,000 people at this amazing sold out show and Ndidi suddenly says, “This next song is for my friend, Lori” and she sang a beautiful song.  My boyfriend tried to get me to stand up to dance, but I wasn’t willing to do that – it wasn’t a dancing crowd and we would have blocked someone’s view.  He kept saying, ‘She’s waiting for us to dance’ and I still really wasn’t getting it, thinking that the Lori she referred to was someone she actually knew.  Finally he pulled out the ring and proposed to me.  I finally understood that the words to the song were meant for me (and the reason for his wanting to dance).

It was quite funny and totally magical!”

We just love Lori and Duane’s story – it really sounds like their engagement proposal truly embodied the things they loved.  Minus dancing!

TLC: What is your favorite place in the whole wide world?
Conor: Anywhere where my backpack’s behind me and my son in front of me.

TLC: Childhood ambition?
C: To dig up dinosaurs and put them back together again.

TLC: Current ambition?
C: Not let today slip away, bake a five layer cake with homemade frosting, perfect my Spanish, get on airplane without knowing where it’s going.

TLC: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
C: Hand out twenty dollar bills like parking tickets and get on an airplane without knowing where it’s going.

TLC: Who is your partner?
C: An occasionally shy, always humorous British boy with a killer crooked smile and a way with building furniture.

TLC: How did you and your partner decide to get married?
C: We stopped thinking and dove in.  Literally- he proposed next to a swimming pool (because we wanted the ring to evoke the moment we took the literal and figurative plunge) and then he threw me in!

TLC: What does your wedding/engagement/commitment ring look like?
C: It is a sapphire with two small diamonds on opposite sides made by Tom McCaffery in Chicago.  We later commissioned Tom to make a pair of earrings when Declan was born to expand the orbit to include all three of us.

TLC: What do you think about your ring(s)?
C: I get lost in it and wander to all of the places we still have to get lost in together.

TLC: Pets?
C: Our 2 year old son.

TLC: What do you do for work?
C: Bookkeeper for artists and nonprofits, while studying for CPA exam.

TLC: What are you passionate about?
C: Taking people places they never thought they’d go.

TLC: What is the last book you read?
C:”The Canon: The Beautiful Basics of Science” by Natalie Angier

TLC: Favorite beverage?
C: Sapphire and tonic with lime, light on the ice.

TLC: Sweetest indulgence?
C: Concerts that start after midnight.

TLC: What is your favorite physical feature?
C: The Jersey Shore.

We’d love to hear about your super-cool ring!

Email us!