For Christmas 2018 I decided to try and make my Christmas presents for family and friends. I started with a soup spoon bangle and a few other fairly raw bits and bobs.
Not long after I acquired a camper and even managed to get to Portugal and back in it. So I started to concentrate a bit on the jewellery as a means of keeping me on the road and near the beach!
With just a few tools and a bag of forks and spoons I spent my time developing my skills and watching a style emerge as as I went along. It's an incredibly meditative process.
So, now I wander about foraging for great quality vintage cutlery in markets, junk shops, house clearances and auctions for the raw materials that inspire my pieces.
I can work anywhere and anytime including late at night in the van finishing orders for the next day's market. I don't use any power tools so the process is eco friendly and totally portable.
I don't heat the cutlery at all, and just use a variety of hand tools to bash, bend and persuade into unique pieces of jewellery.
All this means that I can arrive at a market with everything I need to share my wares with my customers. This is all fairly new to me, but so far I have done several markets in Ireland and the UK. And Chubby my Border Terrier is never far from the action!