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My jewellery collection grew out of a single piece of broken china that I fell in love with about ten years ago. It was a chipped and cracked Fragonard design, on an original James Kent cake plate from the 1950’s, (a little like this one). I made my very first vintage broken china piece of jewellery from that shard.

That one broken china plate gave me not only a gorgeous ring that I still wear to this day, but also an interest in the lovely world of decorative tableware. I had never really thought about it before, but now I have become slightly obsessed with it! I search for pieces everywhere I go - op. shops, garage sales, car boot sales, marketplace, everywhere. I prefer to find pieces that are already damaged by time, because breaking a perfectly good, intact, lovely piece of old china brings me no pleasure. Anything slightly worse for wear is an opportunity to create something beautiful!

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The longer I work in my studio, and the more jewellery I make, the more I have come to love the romantic nostalgia of these pieces. The way I can transform that last chipped plate from Grandma's good dinner service into heirloom pieces for her descendants to wear and to remember her by. How Mum's wedding china can be shared between daughters and sisters and nieces and grand-daughters, and each generation can come to feel and experience that connection. I love the drawing closer of those family bonds, and the narrowing of the years of love and maybe loss. I feel honoured when strangers send me their broken china and ask me to craft wearable memories for them.

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One of the things I really value about my jewellery collection, is that in creating these pieces I am not only saving discarded objects from going to landfill, but I am preserving and recrafting these beautiful designs, often many decades old, from being lost forever. The move today towards slow-fashion, the need and desire to be kinder to our beleaguered planet, has taught us to recognise the beauty in that which has been loved before. Recycled jewellery, upcycled jewellery, sustainable jewellery – all have come to show us that in this fast-paced, commodity-driven world, those daily items that might be old, even faded and cracked, maybe chipped and stained, have still retained their beauty and their power to delight our memories.

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Whilst waiting for The Phone Call, I am also spending some time being a mum-on-call to our two grown up children. Living in the same city as them has definitely been one of the upsides of having to move here. My son and I go to the rugby. My daughter and I enjoy musicals at QPAC. I love art galleries, margaritas, beach holidays, my Agatha Christie collection, my canary-yellow Suzuki Swift, and my two loving cats, Nox and Mollie.

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As a solo creative, sitting outside the huge industrial wheels of mass production, mass marketing, and fast-fashion, my entire business relies on word of mouth. If you buy a piece of my work, or even if you just like it and know someone else who might like it, I’d be very grateful if you could share my site. Please subscribe if you wish. I don’t send many emails, but you will be able to access discounts, learn about new collections, and get exclusive access to Christmas pre-ordering.

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Thanks for being here. Heather.

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