Meet the maker Gillie La Haye

I've been fortunate in having had several different careers and I've loved them all - the best have been being a wife and mother and for the last 17 years, a practitioner of Bowen Technique and other therapies. But throughout my different lives I've always loved jewellery and as a child I collected anything pretty - especially if it sparkled - and kept them in little pretty boxes! - not much has changed really - just that now I do something with them. A few years ago, my teenage son, searching for something unusual to give me for Christmas, lighted on a set of jewellery-making tools - I'd never had anything like this and I immediately booked a few courses and that was it - I was embarked on yet another career.

I love using unusual beads, anything wonderfully tactile or with a particularly unusual sheen or shape. Probably most of all I enjoy working with things from or about nature - sea-glass and shells are a particular favourite and I experiment all the time with new ideas.