Handmade Gemstone Rings: Embracing Colour This Spring

I’ve always thought of myself as someone quite timid, I hate confrontation. Quiet, perhaps and certainly drawn to softer tones, to gentle textures, to jewellery pieces and clothes that sit comfortably rather than stand out too loudly. My work has always followed that same thread — silver, small and delicate, softened edges, pieces that feel easy to wear and live with.  So it surprised me to find myself thinking so much about Frida Kahlo.

She feels, at first glance, like the complete opposite. Bold, expressive, surrounded by colour. The kind of presence you notice immediately and yet, the more I’ve sat with that thought, the more I’ve wondered if the difference isn’t quite as clear as it first seems because when I look at my work — really look at it — I can see how much of it is rooted n paying attention and collecting small things that catch my eye and holding onto them because they feel meaningful.

A shell picked up on a Norfolk beach, a button that feels like it has a past life, a small stone, chosen simply because something about it felt right. Recently, that’s taken the form of a small box of gemstones I’ve had tucked away in the workshop. Each one is different and each one has been quietly waiting for its moment in the spotlight.

Frida Kahlo didn’t use colour lightly. She surrounded herself with it — in her paintings, her clothing, her jewellery — but it wasn’t random or careless, it was thoughtful, intentional and personal. Her necklaces, her rings, the flowers she wore in her hair — they weren’t just decoration, they were part of how she told her story.

I think, in a quieter way, that’s something I’ve always done too but not through bold layers or striking contrast, but through small, considered details, through pieces that carry meaning, that reflect a place or a memory, that feel like they belong to the person wearing them.

This month, I’ve been making a small collection of gemstone rings. There are soft greens, gentle pinks, deeper purples, and warmer, golden tones — each one chosen because it caught my eye in that moment. Not because it matched anything else, or fitted into a plan, but because it felt right.

For a long time, they sat in that box, but something about spring — the light shifting across the fields, the hedgerows slowly returning to green, that sense of everything quietly waking up,those bright and beuatiful daffodils and tulips— made it feel like the right time to bring them out.

I have stopped waiting for a perfect plan and instead let each one become something it was always meant to be and perhaps that’s where Frida has stayed with me most, not in the boldness, or the brightness, or the way she dressed — but in the quiet permission she seems to give to wear the colour and choose the things you’re drawn to, even if they don’t quite fit the version of yourself you thought you were.

Maybe I am calm and quiet, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for colour.

As I prepare for the Holkham Spring Market this Easter weekend, it feels like the perfect moment to embrace the season — and perhaps a little more colour too.

Shop Handmade Rings here