Nooo, not the political one - my birthday!

This year for my birthday I had grand plans of holding a lovely summer barbeque birthday bash but those plans were thwarted this weekend by the relentless rain we’re having at the minute. Not that it mattered though, I had a fantastic time.

Its been a while since I threw a party, certainly before I was so keen on reducing my environmental impact and luckily a couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Lucy Brindley from ‘Little Cherry perfect parties‘ who wanted to tell GGG all about the green party products they provide. Intrigued by this I checked out the site and told Lucy that I was thinking of buying some products. Generously, Lucy offered to send me a sample to review and asked me how many would be coming to the party and how old my child was. I had to fess up! “The birthday party is for me, I am a 31 year old child!” .

As promised, Lucy very kindly sent me samples of party items from her shop - some cutlery (knife, fork and spoon set), pink balloons and 12 candles all presented in gorgeous drawstring bags.

‘So, what’s green about those?’ - You might ask. Well, I’m going to tell you.

The first thing that actually impressed me about Lucy is that she knows her products well, she was keen to tell me why she had chosen particular items, any pros and cons, where they had come from and so on. I really like that transparency, and its clear that Lucy has nothing to hide.

OK, to tell you more about the party items I received; The cutlery is organic bamboo which is biodegradable and did in fact go into the compost after we used them. They were nice and strong and didn’t bend or snap like those horrid plastic ones and just about everyone commented on how attractive and different they were, which gave me a great opportunity to tell them about Little Cherry.

The balloons are also biodegradable, made from latex which, Lucy tells me, breaks down in about the same amount of time as an oak leaf. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about the idea of biodegradable balloons until seeing them on the Little Cherry site and had dismissed them as something that ended up in landfill or harming wildlife after being discarded. Additionally, many conventional metallic and printed balloons end up causing pollution because of the amount of resources that go into their production and the toxic ink used to decorate them. One thing that I meant to ask Lucy was about the rubber trees that the latex is sourced from and whether they are managed sustainably - I’m sure she’d be able to tell me. The balloons are still decorating my kitchen because I can’t bring myself to throw them away but when I do, I know they’ll be gone in 6 months time.

My partner’s mum made me a delicious birthday cake which was covered in fair trade chocolate. Having the pure beeswax candles from Little Cherry to place on it couldn’t have been better. I’ve often wondered what is in regular birthday candles that makes them give off that nasty black smoke but you just don’t get that with these beeswax ones. I’m told they provide a honey aroma but I didn’t give them long enough to burn before blowing them out, making a birthday wish and eating the cake. As you can see here, it didn’t last long!

Of course there are many other products available from Little Cherry and no doubt I’ll be going there for more party supplies in the future. The items that Lucy sent me were presented in lovely ethically-sourced cotton bags which are printed with ‘100% eco-friendly’ and ‘my party bag’ in non-toxic inks.

I noticed that the Little Cherry promotional materials are also eco-friendly - the letterheads and business cards are made from recycled paper and the fridge magnet from recycled plastic cups. Its obvious that Lucy has thought about the environment throughout her business.

Aside from how great the cutlery, balloons and candles were there is something else that I respect about Little Cherry and that’s honesty. When Lucy sent me the candles she told me that she’d had to import them but didn’t feel happy about that and currently is looking into having the made in the UK. We all know that not one of us is 100% green but the important thing is to know where we can improve and how to go about it and here’s an example of a company doing just that. Although I think Little Cherry already have a lot to be proud about, thank you Lucy!