rachellucie

Link to rachellucie.etsy.com http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6054113


I am Rachel Johns, a full time mum of two (Robert, 5 and Lily, 2.5) and full time jewellery designer. I only started designing and making my own jewellery last year, it being my first ever creative endeavour at the age of 36! I used to take great interest in art, design, crafts, interior design, anything visual, but was more of an armchair admirer.
I don’t know what happened to me last spring, it all started when I got a wad of birthday money and wanted to treat myself to some beautiful and unusual jewellery. I couldn’t find any! I hadn’t heard of etsy then. This started me on a long journey which started there and within about a month had me thinking, not only do I want to do my own jewellery, I want it as my job!

What do I make?
Well, I make sterling silver, semi-precious bead and freshwater pearl wire jewellery. That’s not very unusual! However, my inspiration is from early twentieth century design, whimsy, glitter, glamour, faded opulence, Art Deco, Art Nouveau.

My designs don’t look like Art Deco jewellery, though, they look like the mixed up concoction from that era that is in my head! My pieces are all about quality jewellery that lasts and my passion is semi-precious stones and silver, so no brass, gunmetal or other metals are used.

I create the pieces I want to wear, that can be worn with anything, dress up or dress down so people feel the investment they have made in something they will hopefully want to wear for years to come. My Grandma (‘Gilly’ we called her) had a silver and ivory inlaid sandalwood box with all the broken necklaces and beads she’d kept from the 1930’s, and her mothers and her grandmother’s jewellery - rock crystal, chrysaphrase, turquoise, pearls, jade, green onyx, originally from great long strings of beads. I spent hours as a child asking her the names and threading my own ‘necklaces’. Gilly also had a string of pearls she was given for her 21st and had worn every week for the last 60 years. I loved how those pearls looked. Vintage is very ‘now’ but I think I’ve always been there, I’m glad everyone else joined me!

I am pleased with my etsy shop, and I think I have managed to portray the image I wanted, although it’s very much a work in progress, and I enjoy tweeking it immensely! I use antique books, my dilapidated kitchen windowsill, local Yorkshire stone from my garden, things I have kept for years that I love and have had no use for to display my jewellery – suddenly it all makes sense! I suppose I am in between the minimalist shop display used by some jewellery designers on etsy, and the vintage whimsy ones who have a more complicated set up. I hope it works for me!