Unique Seaglass Jewellery Inspired by the Ocean

Guest Blog Article by

Lindsay Hunter | Kriket Broadhurst Jewellery

 I was a fan & customer of Kriket’s jewellery long before I was invited to join her business. Previously I had only seen seaglass jewellery designed in a very obvious way – huge jagged chunks of glass wrapped clumsily in wire, perhaps sitting next to a silver sea turtle or fish, nothing too unusual or creative. 

Kriket’s style is much more subtle and elegant, small perfectly frosted pieces of glass hung on delicate earring hooks or chain or sculpturally set within a gold or silver bezel on a ring. She has always believed authentic seaglass is beautiful enough to take centre stage without too many unnecessary embellishments. I now work alongside Kriket, bringing my design background to good use. Over the past year we have been growing the business and developing some new gorgeous designs. 

Much of our seaglass has been collected by Kriket’s own hand from Seaham Beach in England where, until 1921, the largest glass-bottle works in Britain was located. Londonderry Bottleworks produced up to 20,000 hand-blown bottles. At the end of the day, any discarded and waste glass was dumped into the North Sea. After many years of ‘surf tumbling’ the glass is washed up on Seaham beaches with every tide. Some of the glass is more than a hundred years old, polished smooth by Mother Nature. Some of our most incredible pieces of glass have come from Seaham, including some “multi’s” (see photo). For the rarer colours such as teal, aqua and cobalt blue, we have excellent glass collectors we know and trust in Iceland, Japan & America.

Kriket is an absolute perfectionist when it comes to the authenticity of our seaglass, the origins and quality of our metal, and the care we take in the making process. Over the years she has owned her own jewellery shop in Wales, exhibited in galleries, and sold at numerous markets both in the UK and Australia. Upon returning to Australia 4 years ago, and after much market research, Kriket concluded that the Manly Market is the best point of sale for our jewellery. Our typical customer has a relaxed, elegant sense of style coupled with a love of nature, and an appreciation of hand-crafted pieces.  Manly is definitely home to many of our customers but it also attracts tourists both national and International who are in pursuit of quality, crafted goods that are hard to find. 

We have a stall in Many on most weekends,  just opposite Ground Zero cafe, where new and returning customers come to see us. Many of them started with one pair of seaglass earrings, and have since come back for a custom-made ring, a necklace for their sister, a bangle for their mother. They respect the care we take in selecting the glass, the uncompromising quality of our craftsmanship and materials, our genuine and and helpful customer service as well as the desire to own or give unique, bespoke jewellery.

We had big plans for the further growth of our business for 2020. We were planning on returning several times to Handmade Canberra Market, a wonderful event full of high calibre band-crafted produce. We wanted to host more invitation-only shopping events, and even workshops. However, as it has been for most people Worldwide, the Coronavirus has thrown a rather large spanner in the works. For the time being, we are holed up in our individual homes trying to entertain and home school our young children and stay healthy and sane. We are both still managing to work on aspects of the business even during this hard time.

Thankfully, just before the virus really took a hold of Sydney, we managed to build up our online catalogue so the large majority of our products are available there, and on Etsy, with more to come in following weeks. This makes it easy for some isolation couch shopping, while eating your way through your emergency supply of snacks.

We are taking part in the ‘Mother’s Day Virtual Market this Sunday 26 April 2020 at 9am Visit www.handmadecanberra.com.au.For any customers that shop with Kriket Broadhurst Jewellery on that day, we will be offering a 15% discount plus free shipping within Australia. Simply use the code HANDMADEVIRTUAL15% at checkout.

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Lindsay Hunter