MY STORY
I have always been creative and had a passion for making things. The first time I made money from selling jewellery I had made was back in 2012. I made friendship bracelets from string and then gave the profits to my sister who had recently became paralysed and was saving up money for a wheelchair. In 2016 I then started making cowrie shell necklaces and selling them for a few pounds on depop, and luckily enough the next summer these became a trend and so I made about £200 in profit which was loads to myself at the time!
I then gave up for a while with making bits as I went to study politics at the University of Bristol and put my passion of being creative to the side.
During my second year summer, I was browsing some markets for jewellery in Catalonia but didn't want to pay the high, marked up prices. Instead, I went home, found a small family run business in Indonesia who made things similar to those from the market, and then bought some bits. I had to spend a minimum of £100 and so I ordered some more things that I didn't really need and then forgot about it for another few months and enjoyed my time at university with my besties <3
Around came the new year and I needed to start thinking of ways to save up some money for my gap year. I remembered the spare rings I had bought from Indonesia, made a tiktok of them and stuck them on depop. The tiktok went viral and I sold out of the 10 rings I had instantly. The video had millions of views but I didn't have nearly as much supply as there was demand! I put all the profits to buy more rings from this sustainable, and ethically run family business to buy some more, made another tiktok, sold out, and put those profits into buying more stock and so on and so on.
As I was now a final year student with coursework, a dissertation and exams to study for, I put this side hustle to an end and forgot about it and thought I would get a corporate job once I had my degree.
Once I got my degree I felt empty with no ambition to go and climb a corporate ladder, I fell into a pit of depression as I watched all my friends find their place in their new grad jobs. I had no clue what to do with my life and also had no motivation to travel and couldn't find a way out of feeling empty inside.
This bought me to around spring 2022, and I still felt so so lost and down. I then started self-teaching myself pottery and found this so therapeutic and allowed me to be creative again. Whilst my mental health was improving doing this I started the application process for jobs again, and then found myself in a marketing role for a sustainable fashion start-up in London.
I got them 2 viral videos with half a million views each in my first 2 weeks. I lasted here for about 5 weeks until I thought why am I putting my hard work into someone else's brand when I could be doing that on my own.
I left this role to pursue my love for jewellery. I picked up where I last left it at uni, then started making the videos, investing the profits into more stock, selling out, ordering more, and so on - and here I am now, but this time around I will be selling handmade ceramics alongside my jewellery :)