Today I am excited to bring you a guest post by the brilliantly talented and lovely Bough to Beauty. I've been looking for guest bloggers for a few weeks now and mentioned I do blogs on twitter, Bough to Beauty got in contact and as they say the rest is history.
Here are some pictures of the creative ladies who came up with Bough to Beauty and below I interviewed them about their company and inspirations.
How did you decide on your company name?
Like many 'light bulb' moments the name came to us over a glass of wine. It was a sunny evening when we were volunteering on an organic farm in Portugal. Our jewellery is all upcycled from wood, so we wanted to include a wood reference in our name, so 'Bough' of a tree seemed appropriate and we think our jewellery is beautiful, so two glasses of wine in, the name 'Bough to Beauty' felt inspired and we still really like the name. When we do stalls it's fun to see people look at our pieces, read our name and make the connection! 'Ah, I get it, Bough to Beauty!
How long have you been open and why did you start?
We arrived back in the UK in May, after several months living off grid in Portugal and did our first 'pop up' shop in a lovely boutique, Rhoda in Crouch End, London in June and launched our website www.boughtobeauty.co.uk in August.
Our time living simply, surrounded by nature, gave us the head space and courage to take the leap of faith and start making plans for Bough to Beauty. We had both made big lifestyle changes, by giving up our jobs in London and heading to the wilderness to learn to live more sustainably.
Setting up a business with eco and ethical credentials is a dream come true for us. We're sisters who love great, fun and unique design. Our designs are inspired by our passion for nature, travel and music, so bringing everything together into a business has been a wonderful, exciting and exhilarating experience.
What's your favourite piece?
Our favourite pieces are our new sheep brooches and earrings. We are now based in Lancashire, where we grew up, and we're loving the beautiful countryside. We've had so many requests for sheep that we decided to create some, who knew sheep were so popular? We're really pleased with them, they are such fun little characters. The sheep are yet to be named but are coming soon to our website and our Etsy and Folksy shops.
Sheep, Coming Soon!
Where does your inspiration come from?
As we mentioned our designs are inspired by our passions for nature, music and travel. We have so many ideas in the pipeline, including a range of cufflinks, that we are really excited about. The difficult thing is finding the time to turn our ideas into products, we need more hours in the day.
What do you love the most and least about having your own company?
Bough to Beauty is only four months old and we're super excited about it. So much so, it's hard not to love everything about it, from creating new designs, to travelling around to craft events, to meeting other creatives who are passionate about doing what they love!
We wanted to set up a creative, environmentally conscious business and we have, so we're thrilled. We're working hard and enjoying pretty much all of it, although our least favourite thing at the moment is the lack of sleep, due to excitement. We've switched from tea to coffee, which keeps us wide awake when we're up early on stalls!
What other things do you like doing?
We're keen gardeners, we had an allotment, next to Alexandra Palace in North London for years. We loved our time there so much that we were inspired to go wwoofing, which is volunteering on organic farms.
We also love food, from growing it to pickling, baking, cooking it and brewing our own fruit wines and spirits.
We're also huge music lovers, Lou used to run music events in London with our friend Amy. Frenz is still going strong, check out Frenz on Facebook www.facebook.com/frenzexperiment. We still go to lots of music festivals, it's the only time we take a break from our work. Hopefully next summer we'll be able to combine our passions and take Bough to Beauty on tour around music festivals.
And finally what advice would you give to others?
Don't be afraid to do what you're passionate about, it can be challenging at times but its so rewarding and the pros totally outweigh the cons, so it's worth taking the plunge.
There's a saying 'Life begins when you step outside your comfort Zone', there's certainly an element of truth to that. We've made some huge life changes this year but it's been great fun, we've met some fabulous new people and followed our dreams, long may it continue!
If this has convinced you to take a look at Bough to Beauty why not explore the links below and get to know them a little better
Website www.boughtobeauty.co.uk
Etsy shop www.etsy.com/uk/shop/BoughtoBeauty
Folksy www.folksy.com/shops/
Facebook www.facebook.com/boughtobeauty
Pinterest www.pinterest.com/boughtobeauty
Twitter @boughtobeauty.co.uk
Hope you have enjoyed this guest blog post and if your interested in doing a guest blog for me please leave a comment below and I'll get back you.
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