The Year of 2020

I’m sure many of you have reached this time of the year and have started to reflect. It’s been a bummer of a year, there’s no doubt about that. The fear started around January/February when news reports started to come in of a new virus in China called Covid-19. I remember taking my son Jesse (aged 22 months then) on the train for the first time in February without his buggy. It was an exciting day for Jesse (nervewracking for me!) taking an overground from our home station in Chingford, East London to London Liverpool Street and back, but we were not sure about whether to go after we learned the virus had started to hit London. I don’t think anyone was quite prepared for the long lockdowns which followed…

My husband Dave started to work from home in late March after lockdown started and we’d go out walking daily with Jesse to get our exercise. I remember the weather being gloriously sunny and our walks became a mixture of pushing Jesse in his buggy and walking (he’d just started to reject the confines of the pushchair). We did Joe Wicks work outs every day. We did a lot of baking (who knew that vanilla essence and flour would be in short supply!). We did a lot of stressing about food shopping.

Whilst all this was happening though, my little business boomed. My sales have really flowed this year and there have been great campaigns celebrating small businesses and the beauty of handmade. On Twitter, #celebsforsmallbiz (@CelebsforBiz) along with the amazing work of accounts and people like UK Gift AM (@ukgifthour}, @handmadehour, @ukcraftershour, #twittersister, @theopaphitis (Small Business Sunday} and Andy Quinn/Aqua Design Group (@ADG_IQ) for the #queenof #kingof competition have really widened an already large support network for us independent, small and handmade makers. Along with becoming a winner of #SBS (Small Business Sunday) last year, I now have a #twittersisters badge and also a #queenof title (proud!).

The down side of this year has been the inability to beachcomb as much as I’d like to (along with all of our other restrictive measures of course). During the summer after lockdown, we took a little family trip to Frinton-on-Sea and picked up some seaglass there, as well as a day trip to Minster-on-Sea in Kent. I sadly lost the face-to-face interaction with my customers too as my local markets of E17 Designers (Walthamstow), Local Makers Market (Wanstead) and Woodford Craft Market (South Woodford) ceased to trade at certain parts of the year.

My penultimate achievement of the year was a cool radio interview with Anna Louise Claydon on BBC Radio Kent one Sunday in October. We chatted all things handmade, the use of traditional tools in my work and how I find inspiration for my unique one-off jewellery pieces. I was pretty nervous for the interview (!) as I had never done one before but Anna Louise made me feel relaxed.

My last achievement of the year was to make it into the final 50 for the Handmade Hour Handmade Hamper Awards 2020. I am yet to learn if I have made it to the final 25 but just to get this far has made my December. Watch this space…

So what’s next…?

Well! I have a new jeweller’s bench coming from Cookson Gold via Durston (not just one my lovely dad pulled out of a skip…} and I have my first ever collection coming early in the year inspired by natural textures and elements. I am working on setting a cowrie shell (watch this space) and some interesting jaspers (thanks Ward Gemstones in Hatton G!). I’ve had some awesome tools from Proops as usual and some cool gems from Curious Gem and Kernowcraft. I’ll leave you with a few of my fave pieces from 2020 (oh what a surprise… quite a few rings!).

Keeley x