recycledideas
recycledideas
Thank you for your interest in our handmade plantable paper!
Recycled Ideas is a wife and husband team of two who have been making paper together for nearly 20 years. Our shop was the first shop on Etsy to make plantable paper, and although we are often imitated, we are not matched anywhere by our level of craft, devotion to our customers, and ability to meet a deadline. Freshness is important with plantable paper. We make all of our paper new and fresh to order, all individually by hand. We then cut each piece as needed according to the type of order we receive. Quality is our highest priority, and we take care to make sure each piece is well-made and chock full of high quality seeds and in great colors. We have the best selection anywhere on Etsy, and because our paper is made-to-order personally by us, you can be confident your paper is fresh.
In our former lives, we were both newspaper editors, and there is still never a challenge nor deadline we miss! If you need to receive an order in a hurry, we are genius at rush and custom orders, so if you need something unique and in a hurry, we're your people. We never miss a deadline! Our story is probably a lot less interesting than our product, so please keep reading to learn more about our paper and a little about us.
Our handmade seed paper contains a special mix of premium garden flower seeds. We have carefully chosen the types of seeds for our paper so that they are beautiful, welcome additions to gardens and do not spread wild and take over places they are not welcome. Our unique flower seed blend is a mix of zinnia, cosmos, snapdragons, columbine, poppies, daisies, cornflowers, calendula, dianthus/Sweet Williams, marigolds, and other desirable garden flower seeds. Cheaper seed paper contains lower quality 'wildflower' type seeds, such as sweet alyssum, that are considered weeds in many places. We are extremely conscientious about the seeds we use and the level of freshness of our paper. Everything is made new and fresh to order. Our premium mix contains annuals, for first year color, and also perennials for blooms in the years to follow. We love to garden to grow and to create — it is the heart and soul of what we do.
We are also deeply committed to the environment. All of the handmade paper we make is recycled and wherever possible, we use 100% post-consumer waste - office paper, school materials (we get a ton of them), used envelopes, junk mail, advertising fliers, left over craft projects, old Christmas cards, donated junk paper, etc. Our techniques and materials are chosen to have a minimal environmental impact. Because making paper requires the use of a lot of water, we recycle it too. We never use GMO seeds or seeds treated with neonicotinoids that are harmful to bees. We love bees and want to see them in our garden and gardens everywhere! We prefer to use recycleable and re-usable packaging as well as re-used packaging and encourage you to keep it moving by re-using and recycling everything in your order.
You can feel good about purchasing environmentally friendly goods from us. Not only are they made with the earth in mind, but your purchases help us to make charitable contributions every year to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and the Jane Goodall Institute. (We have a real affinity for our primate 'cousins', can you tell?) If we could grow baby gorillas, we probably would! Holly used to be a professor of psychology who specialized in primate social behavior.
We believe children should be encouraged to start growing and gardening their own plants as soon as they can participate. We often have various odds and ends and scraps which are too rough around the edges for our quality control standards to sell, and we often include a few with each outgoing order. Sometimes we have more hanging around and we are happy to share them with teachers, day care centers, and stay-at-home parents. They aren't as perfect as the pieces that meet our quality control standards for sale, but they are still full of seeds and can still be planted and enjoyed. We charge only shipping on scrapper items. If you'd like to use some in your classroom, please let us know.
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A BLOG we LOVE // more ABOUT us:
If you enjoy reading about primates and animal behavior from a scientist-artist-mommy-papermaker, you should definitely check out this blog:
http://newfoundlandnews.blogspot.com/
The Mrs. Papermaker (Holly) used to be a college professor and psychologist who studied primate behavior. Now she is a full time small business owner, and has been RecycledIdeas' CEO and Creative Director proudly since 2007. The Mr. Papermaker (Alasdair) is a newspaper editor by day, and a papermaker the rest of the time. He is a busy man who also serves as RecycledIdeas' CFO and customer service extraordinaire. Rounding out the RecycledIdeas bright-eyed, bushy-tailed team is our daughter who is eager to get her hands wet in the business, and our canine helper, Katy, whose big dopey Newfie love is instrumental to workplace happiness.
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All of our items are made with care and in a smoke-free home. We have a GIANT dog (Newfie) who contributes to workplace productivity. Although we take care to keep pet hair out of the products, you may notice some on tape or inside large bags of confetti. It's harmless, however, if you have a strong aversion to pet hair or dander, you should know that we cannot guarantee they will be 100% free from dog dander and fur. More likely, our canine helper is off sleeping in some dark corner of the house and completely uninterested in the paper or the packages, unless they are arriving, and then the alert goes out!
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SHIPPING:
We ship by USPS Priority with tracking for most domestic orders. Pet sympathy cards ship via First Class USPS, also with tracking. If you'd like a sometimes lower, often slower shipping rate, please contact us to arrange for parcel post.
INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING:
International shipping charges vary widely and start at $8 and go up from there depending on destination, value, and weight. Sometimes the destination country will assess a VAT, duty, or customs charge. The taxes that are due upon arrival are your responsibility as the customer to pay. We cannot pay these charges for you, or build them into shipping costs, because there is no way for us to know how much will be charged by each individual country, or under what circumstances a duty will be charged, and there is no way for us in the United States to have our shipping service and post office then pay the tax to the proper authorities in your country. If they assess a charge, that is your responsibility to address with the proper authorities on your end. Similarly, we cannot be held responsible if you decide not to pay the assessed duty/import charge on the item/s you order. If you are concerned about duties/customs charges, we strongly recommend you contact your local authorities about taxation before you place your orders so that you will not be surprised later.
CHECK ORDER STATUS:
If you're wondering about the status of your order or estimated ship date for made-to-order items, please email me and I'll let you know its status. Many items also have tracking numbers available after they ship. If the tracking number is available, it will appear on the item's receipt page. You can check on the status there by clicking on the link. For domestic orders, if the tracking number does not appear on the receipt page but is showing as shipped, you can contact me for the tracking number. Orders that show as shipped typically arrive within 2-3 business days in the US.
CUSTOM ITEMS SHIPPING:
Custom items take a minimum of 1-2 days before they ship, and sometimes longer depending on the number of orders we are currently working on. Most custom orders ship in about 1-2 weeks during the low season and 2-4 weeks during the high season (spring and summer). Very large orders may take longer. Those needed for an event weeks or months away will ship 2-3 weeks before the event they are needed for to ensure freshness. We make every effort to balance freshness with timeliness, so if you need your paper for an event that is weeks or months away, we recommend to time and organize the completion of your order so that it arrives 2-3 weeks before the event. We can send orders earlier. Seed paper keeps an average of 12-18 months if stored under good conditions, in a dry/arid climate, out of direct sunlight, and away from sources of heat and humidity. We still recommend using fresher paper, however. Fresher paper performs better.
PACKAGING:
Keeping with an environmentally responsible shop, don't be surprised to receive your packages in re-used boxes, envelopes, etc. Please re-use or recycle packaging, and keep it moving!
RETURNS:
Because all of the paper we make is custom made specially for you, returns are not usually accepted. I will accept certain *non-custom* returned items within 15 days after purchase and refund the cost of the item (less S&H and paypal fees) so long as the item is returned in the same good condition in which I sent it, and is something that can be easily re-sold. In the very rare event that an item arrives damaged, please contact me right away, and save ALL of the damaged goods including the shipping container, envelope, or box it was shipped in. Orders are insured, but if you do not save the packaging, you will not be able to prove to the insurers that the product was damaged in transit, and they will not honor the insurance.
WHOLESALE:
For wholesale inquiries, feel free to contact me at hollynelsonphd.gmail.com. I have a minimum purchase order of $1000 to qualify for wholesale rates. You may not re-sell our items on your own website.
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