LILYGRIFFIN JEWELLERY: 

A Decade of creating

Spring 2024 is the unofficial marker of 10 years of Lilygriffin Jewellery!  

10 years of working towards having my own full-time business and reclaiming my artistic roots.    It’s taken a lot of dedicated hard work to take it from a `hobby’, learning so many new skills along the way (think accountancy, taxation, photography, website creation, marketing, business skills …let alone the actual jewellery making!) . But every moment has been transformative and rewarding, allowing me to progress my one-woman business doing exactly what makes me happy everyday!

It all started while stuck in traffic on the Southern motorway in Auckland, staring at clouds, with Lily as a 6 month old baby asleep in her carseat...

Inspired by these clouds,  I started daydreaming about tiny triptych necklaces featuring paintings of clouds, rain, storms and sunsets.  I bought some leather scraps online, and started painting.  Spurred on by the success of these mini wearable artworks, and spilling over with long-suppressed creativity, I also bought scraps of fabric, and created more colourful necklaces and earrings with mixed media and geometric designs. 

Later in the year, I ventured into metalwork by purchasing my first blob of silver clay. Silver clay, made from pure silver particles suspended in a clay binder, is sculpted and then torch fired. During firing, the clay burns away, and the silver particles sinter together, leaving behind a solid silver sculpture.

I wanted to incorporate colour into these silver pieces, as I had with my leather necklaces. Vitreous enamel seemed like the obvious choice, but it required a significant investment in both glass enamel and a kiln. I was also not very keen in the traditional flat techniques of applying vitreous enamel and instead wanted to be able to graduate colours for a more subtle and dimensional effect. Eventually, I discovered a Pinterest pin showcasing a brooch which had been hand-painted with porcelain paint.  Light bulb moment. 

Porcelain paint is a water based paint that is applied with a brush (typically obviously to ceramic items), and then fired at a temperature of 150 degrees for 35 minutes.  The colour is then fully set, scratch and water resistant.  Over time, and with exposure to moisture and friction, the paint will wear.

My initial designs were small, scaled-down petals of various flowers—rose, manuka, pansy, and hydrangea.

I listed and sold (not very successfully!) both my leather and silver jewellery via a kiwi-owned online platform called `Felt.’ in 2015. Most of my customers back then were family and friends.

I also participated in a couple of Auckland markets,  and was thrilled when I actually sold a necklace to a complete stranger at one of them!   

In 2015, I began reaching out to gift shops and galleries in New Zealand, hoping to find representation for my work. One of the first galleries I approached, Next Door Gallery, agreed to showcase a small selection of my silver petals. The owner not only gave me this opportunity but also taught me some fundamentals of pricing and commissions. Pricing, as it turns out, has been one of the most challenging aspects of running a business. Balancing between undervaluing and overvaluing your work is incredibly tricky—price too low, and you lose money on supplies; price too high, and sales suffer. Many of my early business lessons were taught to me by the wonderful gallery owners and managers I have been represented by, and I am deeply grateful for their support. Although Next Door Gallery changed ownership after the Covid lockdowns, it remains one of my most valued stockists.

One of the suggestions made to me early on by another gallery owner was to design a range that focused on New Zealand native botanicals.  The leaves, shells and flowers that I drew and created back then are still some of my all- time bestsellers.

In 2016 I launched a very simple website with New Zealand based web provider Storbie- the very first piece I sold was a Manuka flower necklace. I also gained more stockists around Aotearoa- the fabulous Kina Gallery in New Plymouth, Kanuka Gallery in Raglan, Soul Gallery in Hamilton, KAPA in Queenstown, Zea You Gallery in Taupo, and Texan Arts Schools in Auckland (now Creative and Brave).

The NZ native botanicals range started selling well, and I made the big (and relatively scary) step of having this range cast in sterling silver by Morris and Watson.  I remember getting my first lot of castings back from them and being really perplexed and surprised that they had sprues attached.  Not having any previous training in jewellery making, I had no idea how I was going to get them off!   The answer:   A massive end (bolt) cutter from Bunnings!  And what to do with the resulting rough patch??  ...mini files from Bunnings!     So many things I gloss over now were massive milestones back then.  

Since then, I've added to my NZ native botanical collection, learned new skills in metalsmithing, made a multitude of one-off pearl pieces, dabbled in gemstones, and released some of my personal favourites: the bohemian Flutter and Confetti collections. 

Playing around with scraps of metal and a torch, dreaming up new designs, is my favourite thing to do, so as long as you keep loving my little treasures, I'll keep making them! 

Nicki x