Rooted in Wales

Aled Jenkins, based in Llangeler near Newcastle Emlyn, specializes in crafting unique pieces using Welsh roofing slate sourced from disused buildings. His collection includes intricately designed clocks, elegant vases, and stylish pendants.

A meticulous process of shaping, sanding, and polishing is employed, resulting in a tactile and impeccably smooth finish. The distinct colours in the slate are a testament to the various minerals present during its formation. Through precise cutting, shaping, and polishing, Aled creates pieces reminiscent of sea-washed pebbles, with a captivating sheen in shades of grey or purple.

Based in her studio on the south Wales coast in Penarth, the natural environment of her surroundings is very much her inspiration.

Anne enjoys silver’s potential for texture and her ranges explore the relationship of look and feel in the materials she uses. This is what makes her reticulated silver surfaces unique: each marks a precise moment in which she withdraws her flame from part-liquefied silver. Once she has perfected these surfaces, Anne off sets them with strong lines. She forges a relationship between organic texture and a simple geometry, rather like the placing of a formal structure in a natural landscape.

Based in North Wales, Bethan Corin makes from her home studio.

She finds importance in the method of making, the details of things handmade, right down to the practical mechanical aspects of a clasp or a pin. The form, the texture, the feel of a piece is what leads Bethan’s designs.

Her jewellery aims to achieve the simplicity to be worn effortlessly every day.

Buddug (pronounced bu-th-ig) Humphreys is a designer-maker orginally from Snowdonia area of North Wales but now lives in Cardiff, South Wales. She works from her studio by Whitchurch Road in an old recording studio/hall.

Her Welsh upbringing is a large inspiration to her work. The Welsh countryside, welsh literature and culture, feeds into her work.

Buddug studied jewellery and silversmithing at London Metropolitan University in 2002. Buddug keeps a sketchbook diary to gather ideas and inspiration; It is filled with interesting words, magazine snippets and drawings of objects from all around, anything I spot that triggers the imagination.

Enamelling is the technique Buddug is best known for, a method of melting glass on copper, silver or steel. She layers enamel and draws into these layers in-between firings.

Clarrie Flavell studied applied arts at N.E.W.I, graduating in the summer of 2002. Specializing in metalwork and mixed media, she moved to Glascoed, Abergele later that year, and set about building a workshop called ‘Blue Earthworm’ where she could continue her work. Drawing inspiration from the coastline, Clarrie creates unique muscle shell rings, using oxidization to mimic the natural patina and colour of the shells.

Driftwood Designs was founded in 2012 by Lizzie Spikes and Becky Barratt.

Each design is created by Lizzie who trained as an illustrator and scenographer. Lizzie often fashions canvasses from recycled wood and driftwood, and collaged paper surfaces. She finds the uneven shapes, form and textures inspiring and receptive to the fluid inks and paints used.

The Welsh language often appears in Lizzie’s work, she has a keen interest in interpretating words, places and feelings to others through her artwork.

Dust Shack is a family run business where each product is lovingly designed.

Using a variety of woods, Scott and Bobbi design, craft and finish their products to the highest of standards in their North Wales studio and workshop. Combining digital and traditional woodworking techniques, we aim to produce bespoke and elegant items to last for generations to come.

All chopping boards are made from the highest-grade timber, which has been kiln dried to reduce the levels of moisture in the wood, ensuring it is as stable as possible with a minimal risk of cracking or warping.

Chopping boards are treated with pure mineral oil which is a tasteless, odourless, clear and food safe product, fully approved by the British Pharmacopeia. This protects the wood when cleaning, and brings out the natural colour, beauty and sheen.

Elin believes in creating smaller collections in limited runs creating value in the knitware they produce. Combined with a focus on contemporary design, zero waste and the use of sustainable materials.

Elin’s designs are made to be characterful, yet timeless, drawing inspiration from traditional Welsh tapestries and domestic textiles, lace curtains provided Elin with the idea for the pattern on their Fair-Isle scarved.

All Elin’s products are made from ethically sourced wool and hand framed in their Carmarthenshire studio.

Glosters Pottery is run by husband-and-wife team Tom and Myfanwy Gloster. They design and produce a range of contemporary ceramic homewares for those who enjoy using beautiful, functional products made with care.

Their designer ceramics are made from stoneware clay in their Porthmadog based pottery workshop. Made using a range of glazes inspired by their local surroundings and the changing seasons in North Wales.
Each piece has its own story as to how it began, how the form came about and the work emerged as part of their range.

They believe that the story, the soul of a piece, doesn’t stop there. It continues with its new owner, where you bought it, why you choose that glaze, each piece holds far more than its original function. They hold memories from their maker, from their owner and all are individual.

Hannah is designer maker of contemporary jewellery and decorative items, currently working with a combination of recycled mixed media and plastics. Since leaving college in Wrexham in 1991, she has been continually developing techniques and designs from her home in Bethesda, North Wales. Hannah has enjoyed working with a variety of materials over the years, previously exploring patination and chemical colour treatments on mixed metals. With a keen interest in re-using and recycling and a love of colour which is reflected in the current work, each one of Hannah’s creations and pieces of jewellery is individually made utilising the rigid structure of recycled plastic bottles and specially developed collaging techniques from colours found in discarded packaging.

Ken’s work refers to the Welsh Landscape as a metaphor to express a range of human emotions and spiritual impulses. This recent body of work refers to the natural landscape around Sychnant Pass as well as Ancient Sites found in Anglesey and their reference to man`s place in the landscape.

Ken studied Fine Art at Liverpool Polytechnic 1975 –1977 and at Deakin University in Melbourne Australia for his Master of Arts in 1995-1997. A practising artist for over forty years, he has exhibited work in both Europe and Australia including several One Man Shows.

Koa is inspired by a love for the coast and the UK’s thriving creative community. Based near the water’s edge in Sully, South Wales, their location gives them space to pause, evaluate and enjoy life a little more. They hope to capture this feeling in each piece of handmade jewellery, reflecting the coastline and all its colours and forms. Environment sustainability is a key ethos of Koa Jewellery. Each piece of jewellery is crafted using pewter containing 100% recycled tin originating from unused and discarded electrical goods. Materials: Modern Pewter is completely free of nickel and lead, so does not tarnish or irritate. Pewter is almost 91% Tin, with the other 9% made up of a little Copper and Antimony, which is a white metal mineral also found in nature. The pewter and findings [earring findings, chains etc] used are 100% lead and nickel free. Earring findings are silver-plated steel. Chains are stainless steel. Cuffs are made from aluminium. Coloured elements are created with resin.

Lesa’s collection of ceramic tableware examines issues of balance and space. Combining heavily textured ceramic body with delicate interchangeable porcelain vessels that nestle into the slabs. This allows the client to have the choice of building up his or her own collection of work, making each collection as unique as the client.

Established in early 2017, Lima Lima is a line of jewellery designed and made by Rhiannon Hart.
Rhi creates modern & unique pieces using a combination of hand and machine from her coastal home studio in Swansea. Rhi is inspired by a wide range of sources including architecture, art, interior design and sculpture, translating her ideas into both statement pieces and everyday modern classics.

Sustainability is a priority for Lima Lima and Rhi does as much as possible to adhere to this in all her decisions. A few of these include swapping standard 925 sterling silver for recycled silver, opting for powder coating over enamelling as it contains no solvents or VOC’s and only sourcing ethical gemstones where workers are paid a fair wage and work under safe conditions.

Lisa Reeve is a contemporary landscape artist located in Conwy, North Wales. Her distinctive artistic style captures the intricate details, textures, and contours of the stunning Welsh landscape. Beginning with original line drawings, Lisa translates her art into digital prints, offering a unique and expressive representation of the beauty that surrounds her in Wales.

Liz Toole is a printmaker who has a genuine love of birds.
Working and traveling in Africa has informed and inspired Liz’s work, this is where she fell in love with nature, mainly birds, following her ceramics degree.
Liz uses birds to tell a story which is usually something that has happened in her life, she aims to create a positive story.

All of Liz’s screen prints and linocuts are designed and hand printed by her using specialized printmaking papers.
Colour plays a huge part in Liz’s work, she has been known to test print 60 different colour combinations for a two colour screenprint, waiting for that eureka moment

Louise developed her love of ceramics from an early age watching her mother make pottery figures and sculptures. Having gained a degree in illustration and graphic design, Louise went on to complete an MA in ceramics at Wolverhampton.

Now based in Dyserth, North Wales, Louise draws inspiration from her home surroundings. She is always listening, observing and recording in her sketchbook. Her cats and dogs make frequent appearances in her work, as do other animals she encounters in the countryside.

Figures are made fun of, posed as fools and idiots, lost, lonely and daft and sometimes in compromising positions to create humour.

The unpredictable nature of the firing process along with happy accidents that occur along the way, allow the figures created to emerge unique and beautiful. To compliment the hand-built figures, Louise also takes great satisfaction from the meditation of throwing, with its rhythms and repetitive forms. Some shapes end up as bases and stages for figures, some as simple vase, jugs, mugs and bowls, this contrast is an important part of Louise’s making process.

Mandy set up her workshop in 1983 after leaving the Royal College of Art, working primarily in non-precious materials, usually anodised aluminium and laser etched laminate; producing one-off and batch production jewellery, creating large, bold pieces which are both wearable and affordable.

Her three passions are colour, pattern and technique. Although trained as a jeweller, her work has been heavily influenced by both traditional and contemporary textiles.

In 2010, she received an Arts Council of Wales grant to help purchase a laser cutter which has enabled her to develop new work.

Mouse Sails started in the late 1980’s making sails for windsurfers and yachts. Floss took over when their parents retired.

They aim to minimise sailings impact on the environment by reusing and recycling old, damaged and discarded sails, which are used as raw materials for their range of bags.

Each bag is unlined and designed to be a working bag, with the hard-wearing sail material making them quick to dry and easy to clean.

The bags all bear the marks of their previous usage and life at sea. On the bags label you will be able to find the sail type, area of sailing and notable features on the sail such as: hank stains, reefing points, repairs or abrasions, prototype, batton pockets or UV effects.
These features make each bag completely unique.

Nerys is a textile artist who uses stitch, fabric, dyeing and screenand monoprint in her work. She is keen to encourage the re-adoption of these traditional techniques as they were once an important form of artistic expression for women.

Many of Nerys’ themes relate to her rural, Welsh upbringing, both the landscape and the domestic world. Nerys was taught to sew at home and encouraged to continue with the tradition of using stitch as a form of self-expression. She is interested in the myth of the domestic goddess and uses everyday items in her work thereby changing the way they are perceived.

Mother and daughter team, Pam and Beth work together to create a range of floral inspired glassware from their Abergele studio.

The shaped flower dishes begin as a circle hand-cut piece of artisan glass which is cut into petals. The assembled pieces are fired in a kiln to approx. 800℃ to fuse all the elements together.
It is fired again to mould the glass into a dish shape.

Other floral designs begin as a rectangle hand-cut piece of clear artisan glass. Grasses and stems are hand painted with enamel paints. Coloured glass is then cut and placed on top to complete the image. The piece is fired in a kiln at approx. 800℃ to fuse all the elements together. To finish the piece is fired again to mould the glass into the desired shape.

Paul, a largely retired Piano Tuner, makes his segmented bowls at his home in Old Colwyn.

Always interested in carpentry and woodwork from an early age and making furniture for his own home Paul has also graduated to designing and turning bowls.

Segmented bowls are made by cutting and combining different species of wood into segments which are then made into rings which are then glued together to make the “sides” of the bowl.

This is then turned on the outside and then inside to create a pleasing shape. After much sanding and polishing the bowls are complete.

The bowls are food safe and can be used for a variety of uses including fruit, salad or bread and make a beautiful centre piece on any dining table.

Paul’s career has always been immersed in the world of furniture design and making, starting with a Masters Degree in Furniture Design.

This led to further opportunities to work for larger scale businesses, designing and manufacturing upholstery and cabinet product ranges for the main UK furniture retailers such as Marks and Spencer, John Lewis, Next and key independent stores.

Paul’s underlying ambition however, was to eventually return to artisan design and his attendance at a creative green woodworking course in 2018 ignited this desire.

Green woodworking is a very rewarding process allowing Paul to hand shape freshly cut timber before gently drying out the moisture. Paul uses a draw knife and spoke shave on a shave horse, often outside in the forest, and leaves the makers marks intact to give texture and character to each piece.

Steam bending is an ancient process where timber is held in a steam box in which it softens and becomes pliable. This allows Paul to then create sculptural, flowing forms without the need for glue or laminating.

Autumn leaves decoupage is a process unique to Paul products. Inspired by the beauty of autumn leaves, Paul developed a process to press, dry and then apply the leaves to a flat surface such as a table top or clock face. He gently sands back the surface to highlight the vein structures and colours producing a unique pattern on every piece.

Making, drawing and painting are part of me. I cannot separate my work from life, or my life from the work. When I am intrigued, influenced or dominated by an idea, it splashes into the work through a variety of media and techniques; structure, painted imagery, repeated forms, pattern, or symbols as I can become totally immersed in the materials. Most sculptures/installations are created through maquettes using a variety of media, and drawings and then developed, often in clay through hand building forms, and using found and created moulds using my own combinations of clays and often paperclay, fired to 1100- 1200, and decorated with oxides/majolica glaze. I also often incorporate found and altered mixed media into pieces, and more recently my own photographs/ photo collage ceramic transfers, and modelled wax. My subject matter is often experimentation with elements of the human form, considering- what physically makes us appear human, and which features of the body are important to express gesture/emotion/attitude? I also create structures to represent the internal themes that make us more than physical bodies, memory, thoughts, experience etc. I am passionate about creating through making, and often experiment with visualisation and ideas generation techniques transferred directly into materials to develop physical ideas alongside drawn ideas. I am very connected to clay, and am interested in challenging the perception of any ceramics as ‘everyday objects’, which often dismisses the 1,000s of years of tradition in developing techniques, forms and surfaces, and disregards the need for current makers using clay to develop these skills to produce fired ceramic.

Builth Wells – Since graduating in 2006 with a First Class BA (Hons) in Contemporary Crafts Rebecca has gone on to set up her own business as a jewellery designer-maker.

Rebecca endeavours to produce accessible, wearable jewellery.  Her inspiration is taken from antique jewellery and collectables resulting in designs that echo the decadence of times gone by. With a modern approach she creates classic, yet contemporary jewellery designs.

Handpicked gemstones are the main focal point of many of her pieces. She has a fascination with gemstones, particularly labradorite and rainbow moonstone which have an iridescent play of colours, these gems feature strongly in her collections. The individually set stones are decorated with hand placed tiny granules of metal which create delicate and intricate detail.

Ruth makes original screenprints and collages from a studio near Bala, North Wales.

The prints are all made by hand, using Fabriano watercolour paper. This surface has a silk-like quality and holds the colour beautifully. It’s also acid free, which means it doesn’t fade or discolour.

Each design is made in a small edition. The prints are individually numbered and signed. Once an edition is sold out, Ruth adapts some of the images for her range of greetings cards.
Ruth trained as a textile designer in Liverpool and Birmingham, after which she worked as a freelance designer and illustrator. Clients have included Ikea, Sainsbury’s, Waterstones and Marks and Spencer. She has worked extensively with Tate, writing and illustrating 3 children’s books and a designing a range of toys, clothes and tableware. Her prints focus on plants, gardens and animals with a nod to mid-century design. There is a strong illustrative style, with bold colours in contrasting layers.

Clare Collinson is the jeweller behind Story & Star.

Based in Colwinston, South Wales, Clare works predominantly in silver, printed papers and resin, every piece of jewellery is individually hand crafted and therefore unique. Inspiration for her work is drawn from illustrations, lino prints, and the many doodles and drawings collected in her sketchbooks.

Inspired by fairy tales and storytelling; as a little girl, Clare loved being read bedtime stories and her favourite books were those that had been passed down and read so many times the pages were tatty and worn.

Text used in the jewellery is printed onto recycled and textured paper, with mottled and worn paper deliberately chosen to give each piece a slightly aged and vintage feel.

Influenced by her love of the British countryside from her Shropshire roots growing up in a house nestled in the forest, time spent living close to nature in a caravan by a fisherman’s cottage, to now – the beautiful Conwy valley in North Wales. Sarah formed her company ‘Way to Blue’.

Using the old photographic process of cyanotypes, a light sensitive solution is applied to watercolour paper, objects or negatives layered on then exposed to sunlight, the solution is then rinsed off and the paper dried, fixing the image in glorious blue tones.

Sarah uses this technique to capture our delight and wonder in the intricacies and uniqueness of nature, encapsulating the freedom of the great outdoors in her work.

I’ve always loved jewellery, and when I was little I spent a lot of time collecting small bits of treasure; beads, buttons, and shiny paper, and turning them into necklaces or rings. I was given some jewellery tools when I was 17 and learnt jewellery and metalsmithing techniques whilst I was studying design at college. I graduated from University with a BA honours degree in Jewellery and Metalsmithing in 2000.

I make most of my jewellery from sterling silver and brass, and all of my designs have some surface texture which I add either by stamping, hammering or embossing into the metal. I’ve never been very good at drawing so most new ideas evolve from experiments with metal scraps until I create something I’m happy with.

I still love the challenge of making something new using found objects, and occasionally you’ll see some one-off pieces in the shop made from upcycled metals or using small decorative components that I’ve collected.

Charlotte Marie Designs is a Welsh Textile Designer based in North Wales. A Loughborough University graduate with a BA Hons degree in Textiles: Innovation & Design, specialising in printed textiles. After her studies, Charlotte returned to Wales to create enchanting silk scarves inspired by the countryside from her studio.

The magical beauty of nature inspires handpainted designs that are then transferred onto 100% silk to create enchanting scarves. , Designed in Wales and made in the UK using British manufacturers and suppliers, each scarf is double-sided and printed on 100% silk.