the jewellery making process.

I like to incorporate both modern and traditional methods in my jewellery-making process, as well as modern and traditional materials.

Every piece of jewellery begins its life as a simple sketch, drawn by hand. I look through books and museum archives for inspiration, copying out shapes and patterns and motifs that I like, combining them and mixing them up and altering them until I reach something the I think could be turned into a piece of jewellery.

My initial sampling process is very low-key: I cut out my paper sketches and hold them up to my ears to see what they’ll look like!

Once I’m happy, I then refine my initial sketches digitally, turning them into vector files that I can send to my brilliant laser cutters, Slice Laser Studio and YEAH Laser and Laser Babes Studio, who turn my digital drawings into actual, tangible, physical reality.

I like to play an audiobook or low-stakes telly programme (currently working through the past nine seasons of Married at First Sight Australia) while I sort through the laser-cut pieces and make sure I have everything I need.

Then begins the mammoth assembly job: unpeeling protective masking tape from the birch plywood bases of my jewellery designs and sanding if necessary, glueing the acrylic pieces on top, leaving to cure, then unpeeling the protective film from the acrylic, attaching the chains and jump rings and hoops, and giving everything a final polish to make it ready to send out.