Fair Trade Blog

We want to help you dress up your tree this year.

If your tree needs sprucing up, we have a whole new section of ornaments this holiday season.  Check out our Brushkin animals from the Philippines.  These irresistible animals will become loyal holiday friends. You can have the moon and the stars keeping watch over your tree with our golden filigree ornaments from Nepal. 

Sometimes a great scarf is as good as a warm friend on cold winter outings.  Our Alpaca scarves come in rich and inviting colors.  I think it’s the perfect gift for anyone.  If you are like me, I rarely give clothing as gifts because size and personal tastes are always a dilemma, but I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t enjoy wrapping up in one of these!

You’ll find new jewelry on our site as well. If you’re into bold and chunky, we have two necklaces that make a statement.  Both are made from dyed tagua nut.  Tagua (also known as vegetable ivory) is solid, beautiful and makes our slice and chunky style necklaces a fascinating choice.  

And if cats are your fancy, we have a little friend for you.  Our new sterling silver cat pendant from Nepal is a perfect gift for cat lovers.

I hope you enjoy discovering our newest items, and remember…

Keep shopping your good values.

Sometimes when new and exciting items arrive here, it feels just like the holidays. Filled with anticipation, we open boxes and pull out delightful treasures. Just like giddy kids, we can’t wait to see what’s new and share it with others.

It was almost like December here again recently with the arrivel of more Tropical Salvage furniture and other distinctive items.

We have been offering beautiful Tropical Salvage hardwood furniture here in the shop for nearly a year now. It never fails to start conversation with our new customers. Each piece is made from salvaged wood in Indonesia — either from demolished buildings, or logs that are literally mined from where they fell and were buried by mud flows or ash falls. Some of the recovered wood is ancient and reveals the beginnings of mineralization.

Our pieces range from a practical wine cabinet to carved wooden boxes perfect for tabletop storage. We have tables, sideboards, chairs, occasional tables, and coffee tables on display in our store. For the first time, we will soon begin offering some of these items online.

From the moment we opened our shop nearly two years ago, Haitian metalwork has been a popular item in our store. Tough steel from discarded oil drums is cut and hammered into distinctive designs. Our stunning Sun Wall Hangers are made from this metal and then painted in striking colors to bring out the highlights of the shaped and embossed surface.

We’ve also added wonderful greeting cards with a story that fits our mission perfectly. The women of Original Tea Bag Designs collect used tea bags, dry them, then paint them for their fascinating cards. The cooperative gives work to previously unemployed women living near Cape Town, South Africa. I couldn’t agree more with their motto. “When life gives you tea bags… make art.”

Look for exciting new items here at Driftless Fair Traders through the Fall and Holiday season. Fair Trade has never been a better choice.

Keep shopping your good values!

You’ve heard the old saying, “Follow the money.”  In today’s global markets, that’s often hard to do.  

While the American media struggles with the notion of whether or not we are in a recession, cautious consumers are looking at their spending with more skepticism.   They want to know where their dollars are flowing.

So, we all find ourselves thinking more about how we spend.  Not just because we want to use less of them, but because we have all become more aware of how the flow of dollars impacts so many people in the rest of the world.  Most of the money we spend on gas goes to a foreign country while more and more of the money we spend on manufactured goods goes to Asia. 

In many cases, though, we don’t know where our dollars go once they leave our hands.   The Fair Trade system adds transperency to the flow of dollars by setting standards that ensure those dollars make it into the hands of producers and artisans, not the hands of middlemen, brokers, sweatshop owners, or bottom-line retailers.  

Driftless Fair Traders connects you to the flow of your dollars.   A purchase in our store means that money flows to places like Kenya, Afghanistan, Ecuador, and to hard-working artisans right here in the USA.  

New body oils from Arghand Cooperative in Afghanistan punctuates my point.  Rather than succumb to working the poppy trade or depending on the fragile and uncertain local economy, a small group of artisans makes wonderful body oil from local treasures like wild almond and pomegranate oils and sells it here in North America.  When you buy their body oil, you can see where the money goes. 

We can tell you where every item in our store was made and who ultimately benefits from your purchase.   Try finding that out in your average Big Box store.  

Keep shopping your good values! 

What could make a teddy bear even better?   Make it out of Alpaca fur.  If you get your hands on one of our new bears, just try to put it down! 

White Alpaca fur makes them the softest, warmest bears you’ll ever hold.  Each one is hand made in Ecuador from naturally-grown Alpaca fur.  You can select a small or medium size online, but you have to come to the shop to see the large bears keeping watch in our store.   

If you ladies want to get noticed while out on the town, chose one of our elegant new cocktail rings made close by in Madison, Wis.  Each one features a crystal or faux pearl surrounded by an impressive band of shimmering silver beads.  The band stretches to fit any size finger making them easy to wear. 

Our new tagua heart necklaces are more casual for those informal summer gatherings or simply an everyday accent.  Ecuadorian tagua nut is carved into a heart shape with a swirl through the middle before it is dyed a deep chocolate brown.  It’s a great complement to our breezy, colorful blouses.  

Come back soon to see more fairly traded, distinctive, handmade merchandize from around the world.

Keep shopping your good values! 

I can’t wait for Saturday!  Viroqua’s first ever arts festival will be right outside our door in historic downtown.  The Viroqua Partners (Chamber of Commerce) is sponsoring the first Main Street Arts and Crafts Crawl on Saturday, May 31. 

Nearly 20 artists and craftspeople will build a little community to showcase their work.  Court Street will be closed for the day turning our street into an arts and crafts block party!  We’re looking forward to quite a diversity of work from hand-painted milk cans, to landscape paintings, to hand-woven rugs.   Photos by our artist of the month, Jack Knowles, will be on display as well.

One of our goals at Driftless Fair Traders is to support local artists so we are one of the sponsors of the crawl.  The single-day event is just the kick off to an annual crawl we hope builds into something unique and special.  

Stop by the shop for an event map, coupons to local businesses, and some fair trade shopping.  Hope to see you Saturday!

Keep shopping your good values!