Caron from What Caron Made

Hi, I’m Caron and my little handmade business is What Caron Made. I make jewellery with beads, the smaller the better!

I was born in South Africa and moved to England in 2008 with my husband and baby. I grew up in a place called Pietermaritzburg, which was a lot of fun and I enjoyed school and a year of college. After that I came to the UK for 2 years, which was fantastic.

I then went back to South Africa and met my husband. I had various jobs in a bank and ended up working as a mortgage consultant for many years until we moved here.

I used to make beaded jewellery and string pearls before I had children, just as a hobby. However, life with kids was busy and I started up my own ironing business about 9 years ago because it was something I could do from home, it worked really well with young children.

Last year, 2019, I rediscovered the amazing world of beads. I made some earrings which one of my ironing clients commented on. She loved them and wanted me to make her some and make some for gifts. It was then that the idea was sparked to start up a little creative business and Beadworks was born. The journey only properly began before lockdown and so all of my plans for markets and fairs went out the window. I signed up the MMFH not knowing what to expect and was so blown away by the makers involved. It was so inspiring to see everyones stalls filled with the most beautiful crafts and it made me realise that this could be a my full time business. I loved seeing the MMFH grow and I look forward to watching the midday maker interviews to be even more inspired to make this dream a reality.

Watch Caron’s interview on our Midday Makers series on IGTV.

Visit her Instagram @WhatCaronMade

Andrea from Dandylion Design

Midday Makers

I started at art school at 17 and although I always felt my destiny was to be a sculptor; the desire to earn a decent living led me to study furniture and product design at degree level. When I left Kingston, in the middle of a deep recession, all I wanted to do was to set up a market stall and sell things that I’d made. The drawback was having the money to buy the raw materials to make anything in the first place. So, I ended up working for a firm of architects on a short-term contract to earn the cash to do so. Two years later I had to concede I’d become an interior designer. This led to a long career working in many sectors – public, residential, retail and exhibition. I learnt a lot, had a great time and made some great friends along the way. Although I thought I’d have more time to pursue my making passion when I started a family; freelance work paid the bills and filled the hours I wasn’t being a mum.

Lockdown in many ways has been a blessing for me. As I could no longer do anything that wasn’t home based. It forced me to assess what I really should be doing career wise as my industry had taken a nosedive.

One Christmas, years ago I had asked my husband to buy me a cheap hobby kiln. As I have always loved glass and the three-dimensional depth and purity of colour within it, I had hoped to experiment with this material. However, coming to grips with firing schedules had stood as a rather silly obstacle for far too long. Lockdown gave me the time to study this dark alchemy and it was almost a week before I blew that kiln up! Then I slogged through the technical details of firing schedules properly. Along with everything I could find out about glass compatibility and brought a new kiln.

Now, although every time I put something in the kiln it’s still an experiment, I never want to lose that sense of play. Equally over the years of experimenting with many materials I have enjoyed the endless possibilities there are in combining textures that I have grown to adore. Whether it’s timber, metal, leather, flint, plaster or something more obscure; there is a distinctive relationship I have with them all; and a respect for their limitations and potential. I can’t imagine sticking to one material forever, but I am now fully immersed in the love affair I’m having with glass and feel I’m at the beginning of a long and rewarding journey. There’s so much to learn and so many ideas I want to put into practice, that I think it’s safe to assume my new kiln will have a long and hard life.

Finally, the next best thing to my original dream of setting up a market stall, in our COVID world, is a virtual one. I am grateful to makers market from home for setting up and supporting such an exciting platform.

Watch Andrea’s interview on our Midday Makers series on IGTV.

Visit her Instagram @dandyliondesignalv

Anna from One Mans Trash

Midday Makers

My name is Anna and I am originally from the Isle of Man. With a travel journalist Mum, I spent a lot of my life travelling the world; not appreciating it at the time but in later life I’ve realised it’s left a huge impression on me. I went to university first in the UK and then the States (undergrad and postgrad), where I studied acting, directing, journalism, and figure skating…

I then moved to Sweden where I began teaching, but after seven years and at 30, I decided this was not the long game for me. I was always oppressing event management on everyone around me without even knowing it; someone would suggest a cinema trip and I would have organised invitations, costumes, theme, giveaways and catering before they’d even finished the sentence. It was my mother who suggested it might be kind to others to go into events for a living, to spare them, so I returned to the UK and took a diploma in Event Management.

This diploma sprang me into London’s Event Industry, but I quickly realised that a lot of it is very corporate so I used onemanstrash as a creative escape from that – I am a Theatre major after all… I felt very lucky to have it at this time. Only a few weeks before my internship started, I had been sent to a leather house in London’s Whitechapel to collect some fabric for a London Fashion Week designer who I was ‘running’ for. As I waited for the chap to get the order from the back, I spied the most amazing pile of stunning leathers, only to be asked by said chap upon his return why was I riffling through the bin… I took the scrap home, not really knowing what to do with it at the time. I’d always loved big earrings but the old lugs had starting to take a bit of a hit. The fashion students I lived with helped me put two and two together and onemanstrash was born.

That was 2014. It was only in March of this year that I realised I needed onemanstrash more than ever. The events industry pretty much died overnight, and onemanstrash was to be my financial and mental health saviour. I began to develop ‘collections’ not just sporadic pairs, which seemed to make it easy for people to appreciate and subsequently follow my page. I had 199 followers at the beginning of March. I began to spend more and more time investigating markets on Instagram, and more and more of them arose due to real markets dwindling. Throughout March and April my followers and sales began to rise slowly but surely.

Then my first Makers Market From Home in May was when my follower count really started to skyrocket. It felt like a real turning point. What I loved about MMFH was that Andy was a face, a real person, very present and there with us. He had time for stupid questions, was happy to repeat himself, and kept emphasising the importance of fun. That’s really what I needed at the time. By then I hadn’t worked for three months and he really helped remind me that I should be enjoying it. He encouraged us to encourage each other, and people who I originally saw as competition, are now dear Insta pals, and we shout out each others pages often, which feels so good to do. Overall, I’m absolutely stoked I found MMFH, and am really grateful to Andy, Mrs G, Lydia and all the others involved!

You can enjoy our Midday Makers chat with Anna on our MMFH IGTV channel.

Check out Anna’s Instagram account @onemanstrashuk

Paulomi Debnath from Handmade by Tinni

Midday Makers

Hi, I am Paulomi and I am the designer behind Handmade by Tinni, statement jewellery with a heart and soul. I create colourful happy jewellery that will make your heart swoon and your soul happy.

Little bit on my background – I was born and brought up in India (The cultural heritage has a huge influence on my design inspiration). I studied sales and marketing and worked in international chain of hotels as a sales specialist. In 2004, I met the love of my life and in 2006, we got married in Kolkata, India. We both belong to this ‘City of Joy’ and very proud to have strong roots there. That year, I joined my husband in London to start a new chapter of our journey together. With my experience in hotels sales, I was back in hotel sales management. Fast forward 14 years, I now hold a senior position in hotel procurement as my day job, have become mum of a 9-year-old imaginative boy and we live in London.

Now the fun part…. I am totally addicted to jewellery. My mum teases me that I am building secret jewellery museum. ? I am extremely proud of my eccentric collection which a mix of vintage, one of a kind or contemporary design.

Fun fact – my ‘junk’ jewellery always travels with me in my handbag whereas my laptop may have travelled in hold luggage few times. I have no conception of literal value-based priority. (Little tip – you will be stopped at the security check-in every time you are carrying too many jewelleries as the Xray machine goes buzzy. Not fun for the impatient husband while I am explaining the security team why I need 100+ jewellery option on a 3-day holiday. ?)

Handmade by Tinni, was a natural step for me born out of my passion for handcrafted unique jewellery. When I set-up my brand finally in 2019, my design inspiration came from bright colours of nature, amazing places that I have travelled to over the years and most importantly from the rich heritage of India. I create jewellery that are locally made, sustainable, respectful of our resources and responsible towards environment.

I chose cotton yarn or rope as my main design medium as I am passionate about sustainability. Cotton is an amazing material. It is sustainable & bio-degradable, soft to wear, anti-allergic, colourful, and extremely flexible to let your imagination flow. I am self-taught on different rope knots and have been creative in mixing different knots to design new styles for my collection. Never afraid of learning or improvising or mixing new ideas!

I take great pride in making each piece by hand. My aim is to make you look beautiful and proud when you showcase a Tinni jewellery.

Love Nature, Look Beautiful & Be Proud.

Becoming involved with the Makers Market From Home has been incredible – there are so many amazing and inspiring small businesses out there, and it’s such a wonderful community to be a part of.

Check out our happy chat with Paulomi on our Midday Makers IGTV series.

Visit her website www.handmadebytinni.com

Visit her Etsy shop HandmadebyTinni

Instagram @handmade.bytinni

Katy from Katy Wilkinson Jewellery

Midday Makers

Hello! Nice to meet you. I’m Katy and I am the face, the designer, the maker and sales person behind Katy Wilkinson Jewellery. Oh and the photographer, finance manager, etc, etc… I am a wife and mum to two gorgeous small ones and after years of having my own business, I can finally now say it is my Day Job! Hooray!

I handcraft simple and timeless jewellery designs in sterling silver, gold and gemstones, make to order and also take on a lot of commissions. I work from home in a purpose built studio within my double garage and love spending every minute I can in there. Having a fairly recent obsession with gemstones, I really enjoy creating one-off pieces using hand-picked gemstones. Having a small and growing collection gives me the opportunity to offer a really personal design service, whereby the customer can choose a stone they love the most to be set in their commissioned or made to order piece of jewellery.

My creative journey started when I was a lot younger. I was always one of the ‘arty’ ones at school and eventually went on to take Art, Product Design and Biology (I know – seems weird, but I loved it!) A-Levels. After A-levels I didn’t feel ready for Uni so I decided to go to collage to complete a Level 3 Diploma in Art Foundation Studies. It was only for a year, but it was a year of experimentation in different art mediums and it was great fun.

It gave me the opportunity to explore different areas of design that I hadn’t had exposure to before, such as 3D design and from there I started creating body adornments from all sorts of materials. After finding out that there were Uni courses focusing on Jewellery design, I jumped at the chance of heading in this direction and applied to a few including Birmingham City University – The School of Jewellery, where I spent the next three years.

I had such an amazing three years at the School of Jewellery. It was hard work and we were in School every day, using the workshops and learning new techniques. But as an Art based course we were really encouraged to think outside the box and so my Degree Show comprised of a collection of pieces and adornments based on the emotion of Frustration, mostly created using an amazing piece of kit, called a Laser Welder, to create cage like structures from Stainless Steel and Gold.

During my third year I won a few awards, one of which, the Marketing Birmingham’s Jewellery Student of the year 2006, gave me the opportunity to have my work modelled by Erin O’Connor (used to model for M&S) and have my work worn on the Catwalk. These experiences further fuelled my love for the industry and so as soon as I graduated in 2006, I returned home (to Wiltshire) to set up my business.

Since then, I had been working part time as a Jeweller whilst having a day job in Marketing. During this time I had built up collections and ranges, taken on commissions, had been attending craft fairs and sold online, determined to make a go of it so that one day I could finally be a Jewellery Designer Maker full time!

Guess what, in 2019 I made the leap!! When the time came to decide if I was going to head back to the day job after my second maternity leave, I decided to bite the bullet and resign! And it truly was the best decision I’ve ever made. I can now focus on being the creative that I’ve always wanted to be and at the same time, working from home gives me the opportunity to spend more time with my family.

Finding the MakersMarketFromHome and taking part in every one of the markets so far has been a great experience and a fabulous way to spend some of the Saturdays that I would have ordinarily been at physical local markets selling my creations. It’s also been a great way of growing my online profile and I have met some other fabulous makers who ordinarily I would never have met by attending my local markets and who I chat to on a regular basis now. It’s such a fabulous community to be a part of.

Watch Katy’s interview on our IGTV channel here.

Visit Katy’s website www.katywilkinson.co.uk.

Instagram @KewJewellery

Andrea from Andrea Wright Designs

Midday Makers

Andrea graduated Winchester School of Art with a degree in Fine Art Printmaking. After graduating she then started her creative career within the arts working at The Beatrice Royal Art Gallery in Hampshire where she first found herself drawn to handmade jewellery as part of her craft curation role.

Her interest in jewellery grew and Andrea moved to Justice, a high end jewellery boutique in Winchester. Here she was surrounded by the work of the top 40 British jewellery designers. Inspired she completed a silversmithing course that enabled her to start designing and creating her own collection of pieces.

After moving back to her home county of Suffolk she set up Andrea Wright Designs.

From her home studio Andrea designs and creates clean lined, wearable contemporary jewellery in silver and gold and hand picked semi precious and precious stones.

With a focus on the tactility of jewellery and surface pattern Andrea utilises her knowledge of traditional printmaking techniques to create unique textures and finishes on her work.

“Know first who you are and then adorn yourself accordingly”
Epictertus

Jewellery is incredibly intimate, not only in the sense that it’s worn next to our skin but also as a form of personal story telling. It holds our memories of people, places, relationships and life experiences. Our jewellery expresses who we are, it gives us confidence and a sense of self and identity along with conveying our sense of style.

I am passionate about designing and lovingly creating affordable luxury jewellery. Design led, timeless and elegant collections with an edge. My inspiration comes from travel and discovering and immersing myself in different cultures and from the natural world around us. I draw on my fine art printmaking background to add textures and surface pattern to my work, often monoprints transforming the jewellery into unique wearable works of art. Jewellery to express your personality and make you stand out from the crowd. Commissioned and personalised pieces to celebrate you and mark those special occasions in your life. Jewellery as unique as you.

Makers Market From Home has been a fantastic outlet for makers from all over the world during the Covid crisis. It’s a wonderful supportive community giving us all the opportunity to stay connected with our customer who we would normally see at the Makers markets and to bring our stalls to you, from our homes to yours. Huge thanks to Andy and Mrs G for all their hard work.

Check out our Midday Maker’s interview with Andrea Wright to hear her speak about her work and creative life.

Visit Andrea’s website www.andreawrightdesigns.co.uk

Instagram: @andreawrightdesigns