“Be A Star and Make Me A Coffee” beaded bracelet with glass pearls, metal stars and recycled focal

I used to be a bustling, dynamic workaholic; thriving in the voluntary sector where I worked to advocate for and support families with disabled, poorly and life-limited children. I loved it. And from it, I gained a sense of self, social, professional and intellectual worth. I had a clear understanding of how I moved through the world and why.

Slowly losing that purpose to undiagnosed ME / CFS and then having what was left taken almost overnight by Covid in September 2020 was far more devastating than the symptoms that ravaged me for 18 months and beyond. I grew reclusive and withdrawn; I had fallen out of love with people, the world, my community. Eventually I received some good-quality therapy, learned to accept my illness and care for my new self.

Part of that self-care was taking time to find soothing, engaging activities that I could do while bed-bound. I used to sew and tried to take up embroidery (but I’m terrible!) – in one batch of thread was a Kumihimo disk. A google search later and I was in love. Soothing on my hands, easy to start but harder to master and as challenging as you want to make it, Kumihimo (a Japanese braiding tradition) is good for my stiff fingers, soothing for my mental health and is slowly building my concentration.

It turns out that Kumihimo is magic: the joy and delight I experience while making it transfers to the people who receive it. Seeing that pleasure on people’s faces (and in their reviews and reactions on social media) has given me a new way to move through the world once more, it’s led me to open this shop and to consider what I think is important about what it is that I am making and offering to you, here:

1. Every moment of our shared experience – whether making and listing or browsing and ordering – should bring us both delight. I want every part of the experience of making and selling for or choosing and buying from my shop to be enjoyable, right up to the moment your order arrives and you finally get your physical item. If something isn’t quite as you’d expected, let’s talk about it and figure out a solution together.

2. Beautiful things shouldn’t cost the Earth. As far as possible, I am using recycled and recyclable packaging, including compostable mailers and very-nearly zero plastic. The materials I use are – as far as I am able to know – produced in safe, sustainable and fair ways. I will never source materials from cheap online vendors such as massive Chinese chains that are known to use enforced labour.

3. Honest Descriptions and Pricing. I won’t ever imply that something that is gold coloured is gold. I won’t claim that something that is organic cotton when it’s a nylon blend. I try to use recycled materials including beads, wire and cord as much as I can and I will be absolutely clear about what my items are made of and how they are made.

4. I make with Pride. My LGBT+ items are made with Pride. As a member of the Community, I got really sick of seeing Pride being reduced to a single rainbow flag, often with the colours out of order, made from cheap yarn and finished badly. All of my jewellery – especially my Pride and Queer items – are made to be beautiful, long-lasting items you can wear with Pride. What’s the point of expressing Pride in your identity with a low-quality, shabby piece of polyester yarn?

5. Buy because you love my products. I appreciate this platform and space that Conscious Crafties have created, and that our customers want to express sympathy and solidarity for makers with disabilities and chronic illnesses by consciously choosing to buy items from them, but my entire ethos that everything here adds up to is remarkably simple: buy my products because you love them.

Thanks so much :)