For those who don’t know, Vanilla Ink is an amazing venture set up in 2009 by young entrepreneur Kate Pickering, born out of a realisation that there was a gap between graduating as a jeweller and making it work as a career.

Vanilla Ink is Scotland’s unique jewellery studio, committed to developing new talent by providing a supportive incubator ‘pod’. Vanilla Ink enables the UK’s best new designers to develop and grow their businesses in a fully equipped workshop. They are proud to offer our ‘Inkers’ unlimited access to workshop space, peer support, mentoring and professional development workshops – the perfect starter package to ensure each ‘Inker’ develops con?dence and business skills to last a lifetime.

The nine, all self-employed, from the Vanilla Ink studios in Dundee have been selected to attend the prestigious event in London’s Earl’s Court, International Jewellery London in September. But times are especially tough for Scotland’s creative talents.

Gillian Easson, from Creative Dundee explained, “Following your dreams to make a living from your creative talents can be lonely and daunting. Jewellery design is really competitive, so not only do new designers need to be highly skilled, they also need to have access to the best equipment, resources and high pro?le trade fairs – these ?nancial investments can put this career path out of reach for many aspiring jewellers.”

The group will be raising funds on Kickstarter.com, a crowd funding platform where pledgers are offered something in return for their support. Vanilla Ink Studios have put together a range of handcrafted goods, including one off and bespoke jewellery pieces for pledgers. Pledges start from as little as £2.

To find out more see Vanilla Ink’s Kickstarter page

A carefully considered scattering of smooth free moving forms decorate a textured brooch from Kate Bajic.

www.thejewelleryloop.com

Ring by Ana Albuquerque _ Portugal  

“Treasure Lock” beautifully incorporates the padlock as a way to lock away your jewels while not being worn, each ring is supplied with a key to allow the release.

Ted Noten on his work and designs, notice the use of 3d printing in his more recent pieces.

Last time I wrote about Ted Noten, was for his “buy a girl a ring” stunt. 

Icon Snap

Rings by Brian Garret

Design Brian Garret created the Icon Snap Ring, a design based on a single ring and a set of 3 Icons that snap onto it. Each set evolves around a theme, and people can mix ‘n match the different Icons.

Beautiful, simplistic and well executed, Rachel Jones‘s recent work has been produced while living and working at Bishopsland Educational Studios.

Taken from Bishopsland’s website…

Bishopsland is a post-graduate training workshops for silversmiths and jewellers. It was founded in 1993. Members spend one year living and working at the workshops before setting up on their own in pursuit of a professional career.

Approximately 140 graduates have passed through Bishopsland. Most have established their own business, either designing and making in their own workshop, or managing their own gallery or designing for the retail sector. Forty have gone on to take an MA degree, thirty one at the RCA.”

Although these images are only a selection of the work Rachel produced over the year, they clearly demonstrate the level of technical achievement and hard work.

To see our previous article about Rachel’s graduation collection click here. 

An image gallery of the making of this vessel can be found here

racheljonesjewellery.co.uk