Jai from Earth Goddess Jewellery

I’m Jai from Earth Goddess Jewellery by Jai and I create beautiful handmade healing crystal jewellery for the mind body and soul. I’m 42 years young and live in Norwich with my hubby, my dog pixie and my 6 chickens Browny, Snowy, Leghorn, Rogue, Suzy and Dot (they live in the garden not our house lol).

I wasn’t very artistic at school in that I couldn’t even draw a stick man and tended to gravitate more today sports, mainly swimming and dancing and was part of a synchronised swimming team up until age 18 when I decided to up sticks and become a fitness instructor on cruise liners which I did for 3 years and was fortunate enough to see all 7 continents of the world. I’ve always been drawn to beautiful things and would spend hours beach combing for pretty stones and shells with my dad as a child then gluing them to garden pots. I collected lots of beautiful things during my time on the cruise liners, jewellery, sculptures, art, more stones and shells and also a load of old tatt (which I thought was lush at the time – but it really wasn’t)

After 3 years I decided there was no place like home and returned to Norwich where I managed a health club for a few years, before upping sticks for a second time to work in Greece and then St Anton in Austria for an activities holiday company. after a couple more years I’ll returned home again, went on a cruise for a holiday and met my future husband, he moved from Romania to the UK and we settled down and got married. I wanted a job that didn’t include evenings and weekends so landed myself an entry level admin job with Norwich city council, and I’ve been there ever since, I’ve changed roles several times and now work in environmental services.

Throughout all these years my jewellery collection grew and I did a silver-smithing course around 10 years ago which I loved but didn’t really continue with it at the time. Some years ago me and my husband went our separate ways and a few years later I met my current hubby (he’s not my actual hubby as I’m not going to bother with the marriage part again) but he’s my hubby in all but law. I fell pregnant in 2016 but sadly had an ectopic pregnancy and have struggled to conceive ever since the stress of this and other life events led to me having a breakdown last year and to try to assist my recovery my parents brought me a jewellery making set, beads finding basic tools etc, I had counselling and various other assistance and slowly I started to recover, and as I recovered I rediscovered my love of making jewellery. At around the same time I met a reiki healer and had several sessions with her working on me with energy and crystals and my recovery skyrocketed. I then switched my jewellery making focus to healing crystals and my little biz was born ?

I discovered MMFH on Instagram and decided to take the plunge at their second virtual Market by posting my first ever IG video, Andy and Mrs G spotted me and we got chatting and they kindly invited me to tell my mental health journey on the first day of mental health awareness week. It was absolutely amazing, it felt so good to share my story and the response I had from others was crazy good. MMFH is such a wonderful community based market, it’s a creative family, it has this special something that I can’t put my finger on but it’s just the Mac daddy of online markets (in my opinion) I love how they encourage everyone to grow, share, collaborate and work as one for the greater good of the creative community. MMFH has my heart for sure.

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

Check out Jai’s Instagram account @earthgoddessjewellerybyjai

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