Wild Me Jewellery: earrings that donate to charity

Aim

Wearable wildlife photography jewellery designed for wild and outdoorsy women that donate to charity / www.esterderoij.com/shop-earrings

** Update on 09/09

As I come to my halfway point in my crowdfunder I am releasing a few NEW exciting rewards for you to choose from. These include

£5 - Prize draw

For £5 you can enter a prize draw for a chance to win either:

- £50 voucher for Canopy & Stars glamping. As I am all about promoting the outdoors, this is the best way to get those out and about I think!!

- Any print of your choosing (including one of your own), printed and framed at A3 size

- A 'Keep Bristol Thriving' box worth £40. Being Bristol-based, I am all about supporting local business.

Please note the prize draw is only available for UK residents. If you have already donated over £20 then you will have the option to be automatically entered for free. I am in no way affiliated with the companies above, I just appreciate their products and as they are in line with my own I have chosen to promote them in this prize draw.

£75 - choose my next charity

With new earrings to be made, each will have to be allocated its very own charity to support. With this reward you can select which every charity you would like.

£100 - get your own photo turned into earrings

With this exclusive doozy, you will get to have your very own photo dangling from your ears in the way that one of mine does! Perfect ode to a loved one, or your own excellent photographic skills. Only 5 of these are available.

Thanks for staying wild and your continued support **

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Beautiful wearable wildlife photography jewellery for wild women who love the outdoors, nature and protecting the environment.

I am raising money to source recycled materials for my earring business and create an at-home printing process to expand my business. 

Wild Me Jewellery was started by me, a Bristol-based wildlife camerawoman and photographer. Wildlife photography has always been a hobby of mine but a lack of confidence meant that I would spend most of my free time and money taking photos and never actually doing anything with them. When I came up with the concept of printing my photography and turning them into earrings, I suddenly gained a whole new purpose and motivation for my own photographic work. 

Turning wildlife photography into jewellery isn't something I've found anyone else doing so far. In a field dominated by men, that's not a huge surprise. I'm hoping to change that and to have my passion for nature captured, contained and transformed into feminine ear pieces that donate to charity. And through this process accessing and connecting a community of wild women who have a different outlook on life. 

Where stunning wildlife photography meets fashionable jewellery. At the moment there are 4 designs in the collection: a puffin, a gannet, a seal and a sunset. These 4 were selected because they suited the initial earring design as well as that the original target market was UK-based. 

Each earring is 4cm long, and with the original dangle hooks they start about 3.5cm down from your piercing. They are printed single-sided onto aluminium and a beautiful metallic sheen comes through when they catch the light. Each earring weighs less than 3 grams, and are satin-coated for durability. 

Each pair comes in a unique little tin filled with sheep's wool. This allows the packaging to have a minimal impact on the environment as well as being quirky and one-of-a-kind. 

The different earrings support different charities based on what is on them/where the photographs were taken. These include the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Mammal Society and Marine Conservation Society. 25% of all profits go DIRECTLY into supporting these charities. 

Why is there a need for recycled aluminium? 

• Aluminium is the third most common element in the earth’s crust. It is found as a stable compound (in bauxite ore) rather than a metal, so turning it into the aluminium we use today is complex and energy intensive. 
• Aluminium is infinitely recyclable without the loss of quality. 
• Recycling only requires about 5% of the energy used and emissions compared to producing new metals. 
• £36 million worth of aluminium is still send to landfill every year!

The more money I raise, the more freedom I gain to make the business grow into something sustainable and fashionable. This includes:

• Increasing my range to include a collection of images from my time in the Great Bear Rainforest on the west coast of Canada with bears, wolves and orca. I would love to get this collection sold in shops locally as well. 

                                               (potential options)

• Turning this into a fully functioning business and supply local shops with stock
• Create a product photography course for other budding new businesses and sharing my skills. 
• Creating bespoke studs and hooks so that I can widen my range of appeal to customers
• Getting a sublimation printer, a heat press and a CNC machine which would allow me to print the earrings in-house.
• Renting an office space to house my new printing process.

By the end of the year I hope to have stockists throughout the UK and by the end of year two I'd love to have international stockists, printing in-house settled as well as adding a necklace range to my current collection. 

Plans for marketing and sales this year have been turned off kilter as in-person events have been cancelled. The coronavirus crisis has been a really difficult time for me financially in general as my main career involves international travel and I lost all of my annual income overnight with no prospect of getting any more work anytime soon. I was also not eligible for any government support.

At the moment the printing process for the earrings is outsourced, so expanding my range involves a bulk purchase and that's a big financial investment. 

This is an 'all or nothing' crowd funder, which means that if I don't reach my final target I don't get anything and you will get your money back.

There is either a donation option allowing you to donate however much you'd like to the project or there is a range of things you can buy in return for a financial contribution. Some will be of more interest to women, but some will apply to men equally. Either way I am eternally grateful. Whether you choose to support the project or not, please register on my website to join the mailing list and keep up to date with my business as it progresses forward. This is also a great place to keep up to date on a weekly basis of how the crowdfunder is progressing! Join mailing list

I have dreamt of doing wildlife photography professionally since I was in my teens. In my final year of university I bought a simple camera, travelled around, taught in Japan and went on to do a Master's in Biological Photography and Imaging at the University of Nottingham. I then moved down to Bristol and spent a year trying to get into the wildlife filmmaking industry (and did eventually succeed!). It seems relentlessness is in my blood. I took some time out a few years ago to figure some things out and worked at a bear viewing lodge just off of Vancouver Island in BC, Canada. In the process I fell in love with the area and all of its wildlife. I am now based out of Bristol again, living that once-dream of mine and just as passionate about wildlife photography as I ever was. I have a longer-term aim of turning some of my Canadian photography into my next range of earrings as a feature and move to selling them there wholesale in the future as well.

Where can I see more photos of the products? 

Check out my website on www.esterderoij.com/earrings

How do I choose my style of reward? 

At the end of the crowdfunder you will receive an email with the detail of your reward that you have chosen and asking you to confirm your choice and shipping. You can still change your mind of your chosen reward as long as its within the same category.

Where do you ship to? 

All of the rewards can be shipped worldwide, and the pledge prices do not include shipping. The shipping depends on which reward you choose as earrings will be cheaper to ship than a printed and framed photograph.
As a guide note, shipping for earrings is

UK - free postage
Europe - £2.50 for standard, £7.50 for tracked and signed.
Rest of the world - £4 for standard, £9 for tracked and signed.

Shipping for framed prints will only apply to the UK and Europe.
It is too expensive to ship to the rest of the world. In this case, shipping will be of an A3 print only, securely wrapped, and shipping cost is included in the donation amount.

UK - £5 for postage
Europe - £15 for postage
Worldwide - for an A3 print - free shipping.

Shipping options are available when you select your reward - please choose the appropriate option and add the required amount as an additional donation at final checkout.

Who is responsible for VAT/customs charges?

This is the responsibility of the backer if they apply.

How many pledges can you make? 

As many as you'd like!! I am humbled that you are considering pledging more than once.

Do I have to buy a reward?

No, of course not. You are more than welcome to simply donate an amount using the donation button at the top. 

Do you provide gift wrapping?

I certainly can. If you reply to your confirmation e-mail letting me know you would like to have it gift wrapped, even shipped to an alternative address, this can easily be taken care of for you.

This project successfully funded on 23rd September 2020