Iceni Jewellery

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Iceni Jewellery For wild hearts, old souls & kindred spirits. Created on the Isle of Wight, available in the UK and USA.

Iceni (Eye-see-nee) An Iron Age Brittonic tribe famously led at one time by Boudicca, the warrior queen.
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I love to make jewellery that feels like it already has a history - as if it had manifest hundreds of years ago and has already seen many lifetimes. Fine jewellery is beautiful and there are so many talented fine jewellery artists out there all creating stunning pieces, but my love is working traditionally; there are no machines that cut the metal, and none that shape it - just me and my saw and hammer (and often brute force and a file or two!) My style is primitive I like to think - in an Iceni way - If Boudicca were alive now, I reckon she'd wear some of my stuff!

Viking skies (if you know you know 😉) above the Iceni workshop this evening 💚
19/10/2026

Viking skies (if you know you know 😉) above the Iceni workshop this evening 💚

08/10/2026

This is a great explanation between casting and hand fabrication- and I’m definitely not disrespecting castors (because there is such a skill for carving the wax and maybe I’ll go down that road one day for certain pieces and I never say no to any new way to work) but I’m a hand fabricator. I make every piece by hand, from melting the silver, rolling the silver, cutting it, soldering it, shaping and carving it, and polishing it 💚

This morning Facebook tells me that 17 years ago I was in the Cité de Carcassonne, and for once, it has started my day w...
08/10/2026

This morning Facebook tells me that 17 years ago I was in the Cité de Carcassonne, and for once, it has started my day with something lovely rather than an advert for something I mentioned near my phone yesterday 😆

Me and the man spent quite a bit of time in that part of France in our early years. We fell completely in love with it on our first visit, and were lucky enough to stay at a friend’s holiday home in a tiny village not far from the medieval city.

That first time, I had absolutely no idea what awaited me. I hadn’t researched it, which is highly unusual for my neuro-spicy brain. Normally I’d have known the opening hours, the local folklore and possibly the name of someone’s goat 😉 - We’d just been told it was worth a visit.

Now, if you grew up with your head full of fairytales and castles, as I did, you can imagine what happened when those turrets appeared.

As we drove closer, the years began falling away. All the worries, aches and responsibilities of adulthood shed like autumn leaves, until there I was, a grown-up-sized seven year old, standing beneath a turret, looking up in absolute wonder.

Physically, I was there with my then boyfriend (now husband), but mentally, I’d moved in and was choosing a cloak.

We’d arrived off-season, towards the end of the day, and there were hardly any other visitors. At the time, I had no idea what a rare gift that was. And then I got lost.

Obviously.

I wandered off and managed to circle the whole medieval city alone. I later discovered that the man had kept an eye on me from a distance. He’d seen my face when we arrived, and realised that conversation was unlikely to get much further than “LOOK!” - he’d left me to wander and feel it all, uninterrupted.

I love him for that. 💚

The sun was low in the autumn sky, sending honey-coloured light through the ramparts. Everything felt warm and familiar. Almost like nostalgia, except I’d never been there before.

I was lost in more ways than one. My imagination had slipped back through the centuries, and those little streets felt full of the ghosts of people who had walked them long before me. I walked those streets as though I’d done it a thousand times. I felt totally at home.

On later visits, we discovered that Carcassonne usually comes with quite a lot more people. All of us bustling for our own little moment with the magic. But that first visit…that was something else 😍

The first photo is from our second trip. I’d heard there was a spectacular view of the whole city through a small clearing in the trees. Blink and you’d miss it. I was taking no chances, eyeballs were set to no blink.

When it appeared, I let out a yell that frightened the life out of the man, who pulled over so I could hot-foot it towards the grapevines with my camera. A perfectly reasonable response to finding an entire fairytale through a gap in a hedge I reckon!

I took the picture, then stood there for a good ten minutes, just looking. That same feeling returned, something in my heart telling me I’d come home. Some places do that to you don’t they? And some things don’t need to be explained or figured out.

They just are. 💚

The other photos were all of that first visit. With all the golden light and barely any other people 😍

I later found out about Kate Mosse’s (not that Kate Moss!) books, particularly Labyrinth, written a few years before our first visit, and the book I took with me during our second visit which totally amped up all the feels I’d already felt! Then there’s Sepulchre and Citadel, the other two of the trilogy all starring Carcassonne and its history and I really recommend them if you haven’t read them already 💚

We ate the pepper. 😳Ten months. From seed to quiche.Ten months of nurturing, checking on it and admiring it - and then I...
05/10/2026

We ate the pepper. 😳

Ten months. From seed to quiche.

Ten months of nurturing, checking on it and admiring it - and then I stood in the kitchen feeling absolutely dreadful about cutting it up. I’d become quite fond of it. We had history, ya know.

But I couldn’t let it rot. So, after a brief emotional crisis, into the quiche it went. It’s what it would have wanted. Probably.

I saved all the seeds though, so next year there will be Sons and Daughters of Pepper.

I shall raise them lovingly, tell them tales of their magnificent mother, and try not to mention the quiche. 😂💚

Three crowned mice 🐭Some of you might know my little story of Prince here, and soon, there’ll be more to that story, but...
02/10/2026

Three crowned mice 🐭

Some of you might know my little story of Prince here, and soon, there’ll be more to that story, but that’s for another day! 🤫

Here’s how he’s made:

First I melt the sterling silver grain into a blob (ingot!)

Then I flatten the ingot with a rolling mill (a bit like a clothes mangle, but for metal!) until I get the thickness I want. This needs muscles and patience cos it takes AGES! Every few passes of the mill the metal needs to be annealed (heated up until it’s cherry red) to ensure the metal doesn’t tear when going through the mill.

Then he’s pierced (cut) out with a jeweller’s saw.

I make my pieces in layers.

Then he’s soldered together with silver solder.

Then I carve the silver for details.

Then he goes through at least four polishes with different grits to remove scratches from making, until the final high shine polish.

Then he’s sent off to London for hallmarking.

Once he’s home, he gets an oxidising (to bring out the highlights)…

…before he’s packed off, on to his new home 🐭💚

I always struggle with what to buy for young adults. I’m so uncool, I never know the latest trends and fashions, and I o...
30/09/2026

I always struggle with what to buy for young adults. I’m so uncool, I never know the latest trends and fashions, and I often get it wrong! So as he’s a professional PT, I thought a teeny kettle-bell keyring would be appropriate! I really enjoyed making this as it so different to my usual ‘thing’ - it’s good to change things up a bit now and then isn’t it 😊 (but back to critters and growing things tomorrow!)

There’s a bit of a rant in this, a rant with love if you please, but first, could we take a moment for these beautiful r...
28/09/2026

There’s a bit of a rant in this, a rant with love if you please, but first, could we take a moment for these beautiful roses I was so lucky to receive this weekend? I’ve called the colour Antique Lilac, the petals are like aged paper, and I think they’re quite glorious!

My Unexpected Pepper in the pic is now in full blush and ready to pick, but I don’t have the heart to! It took so long to get here, I think I’m going to let it live out its life, and replant the seeds for a pepper bounty next year!

I’ve called this pic, Rose & Pepper, which I think is quite a lovely name for my ‘In My Dreams’ shop, where I sell apothecary herbs, and candles, and starlight 😆 I sit in moss green velvet writing in fancy notebooks where the paper ends are golden, and I’ve pressed flowers between the back pages. I make things from metal and wood and textiles and chat to people who say as they enter the shop (with the little bell ringing) “ooh it smells lovely in here.” And, “I love coming here, I feel so at home.” And I’ll offer herbal teas and shortcake biscuits and in that little snippet of time, everything in our world would be peaceful.

We can but dream can’t we 😊

But…Now the ranty bit! A little moan!

Every now and then, someone messages me in a bit of a panic because they desperately want a particular piece. Could I possibly wave my magic wand and make it happen in time?

And, if I can, I will. Quite a few of you know I’ll do my best to help. I like being able to make someone’s day, gives me the good feels, even if it means reshuffling my day and asking the workshop fairies to put in a shift.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - take payment first, woman! And you’re right. That is my policy. But sometimes someone sounds so sincere and in need, and I so want to help, that I throw my own sensible rules out of the window and get to work.

So when I’ve moved other work aside, bought the silver, made the piece… and then hear absolutely nothing back? Well. That’s just trizzels my nizzles!

I’ve given it time before saying anything, because I know there could be something really difficult happening in that person’s world. Life has a habit of turning everything upside down, and I would hate to assume otherwise. But being left without a word does put me in a tricky position.

I make most things to order because I can’t afford to have shelves full of silver jewellery waiting and hoping for a home. Silver prices have risen enormously, and things are tough for small businesses at the moment. Every single sale matters right now. It helps put food on our table and in three dog tummies.

I’ll still do my best when someone needs a little magic. I’d just ask that, if your plans change and you’re able to, you let me know. A quick message is absolutely fine. Being left with a finished piece and a disappearing act is rather less magical than I was going for 😉

There. Grumble over. I’m going to have a coffee and throw a ball for the boys now whilst I’m being a lady wot lunches! 💚

Happy Sunday lovely people! MyOracle card is ‘inspiration’ today - which has come at a good time cos The Pain Demon arri...
27/09/2026

Happy Sunday lovely people! My
Oracle card is ‘inspiration’ today - which has come at a good time cos The Pain Demon arrived in the early hours of this morning, effectively wiping out any kind of creative thoughts that might have been germinating in my sleepy brain! So inspiration right now is where my energy is at, I need it in shed loads. I do like an oracle card a day…they give me something to focus on when focussing is quite difficult (for any of a billion reasons).

Maybe interesting fact: my kitchen tiles (photographed with the oracle) are the inspiration (see what I did there!) for my copper cuffs! They were here when we bought the house, and I’ve not changed them yet because I love their nibbled edges…a feature that eventually became part of my copper cuffs! 😊

I still can’t share what I’m working on because it’s all in the cutting phase at the moment, so it’s back to the lovely ...
24/09/2026

I still can’t share what I’m working on because it’s all in the cutting phase at the moment, so it’s back to the lovely amongst the chaos:

Nature Notes No. 3

I’ve obviously been living under a rock my whole life, because I did not know that Britain had glow-worms! I thought they belonged to lands far away and Roald Dahl books - but, this morning, before heading to work in the shed, and in my quest to find a bit of good and/or lovely and/or magical each day to silence the noise of all the horrendous stuff that’s going on in the world, I read an article from two weeks ago about an ecologist and his volunteers, (fabulously called the ‘Glow Getters’) who raised hundreds of glow worm larvae so they can repopulate a nature reserve in North Yorkshire with them.

Repopulate? What? Like, they were there before?

And that’s when I discovered that I’m a crappy nature lover wildling because I didn’t know this fundamental factoid that all nature lovers and wildlings surely already know. Please tell me if you didn’t receive this particular memo too, I feel like I’m in a different time-line right now.

I’m going to share what I learned for those of us in the ‘I Love Nature Desperately, But Didn’t Know We Had Glow Worms’ Club.

Glow worm larvae are often found under rocks (obviously not the one I’ve been under), underground or in shady under-places during the day and whilst they hibernate (they hibernate like bears and stuff) and when they become adults, come out to play at night (hence, glowy bums).

Glow worms aren’t worms at all, but a kind of beetle – the adult females can’t fly, but they do climb up grass and plants as the darkness falls and switch on the most extraordinary greenish-yellow light in their rear ends to attract their males (yep, they Illuminate their lady bits!) The males can fly, because, well – of course they can!

There are problems though! With all the light pollution we now have, the male’s ability to identify their females and reach them is severely impaired, which is a bit awful for them as a species as they have literally days as adults to find each other and mate - after that, it’s, sadly, literally lights out for them.
That, and the lack of meadows and natural habitat they now don’t have (Nature Notes 1 explains) has caused their numbers to severely decline over decades.

It’s a tragic story, a sad critter fairytale of short lives, and lights that are lost.

That’s why the story of the ecologist and his ‘Glow Getters’ is so fabulous – and to top it off, their sophisticated conservation operation of raising glow worm larvae to repopulate a bit of Yorkshire took place…

…in a garden shed!

That made me fall in love with the story approximately 300% more!

See! Many fabulous things are created in a garden shed – I knew I was in good company.

I’ll let you find more info about the British Glow Worm yourselves, and if you do fancy learning more, I found a great article on the Beds, Cambs & Northants Wildlife Trust site called ‘Enchanted and Enthralled, Bewitched and Beguiled. My summer as a male glow-worm!’, and leave this particular story here, because I could go on for days, but I can’t, I have my own critters to create - so for now this is today’s little bit of lovely among the chaos.

*spends hours trying to figure out how to make a glow worm in silver*

Picture by NEUROtiker CC BY-SA 3.0

Nature Notes No. 2 – A little bit of good from the wild.Today’s little wander into the natural world is about the rowan ...
22/09/2026

Nature Notes No. 2 – A little bit of good from the wild.

Today’s little wander into the natural world is about the rowan tree. I am definitely a bit of a fan girl of all trees, they are my equivalent to a much loved celebrity, you can often see me standing looking dreamily at trees, I have a young silver birch at the end of my garden, just before you get to the shed, and I talk to it every day as I pass it to go to work. I touch its leaves and tell it how handsome it is! I’ll most likely hug any tree if I can, and I’ll probably photograph it too. I’ll then go home and rave about it to anyone who will listen, and once I have become friends with a tree, I’ll visit it, through all the seasons. I’ll them my news, or just lean on them (after I’ve asked permission of course!) and soak in all the nature it’ll give me! I think trees are incredible, yet, bizarrely, the rowan isn’t one I’m very familiar with even though, at this time of the year, they’re really hard to miss, with their dripping clusters of scarlet berries.

So, because I don’t know them very well, it is today’s bit of lovely from nature that I wanted to take time with. I made it my mission this morning to learn more about them. With the house all quiet after the dogs had gone back up to bed with their Dad for another hour or so, I was left in the warm glow of the kitchen lamp, sipping my morning coffee whilst the sidling daylight filtered through the window. I researched undisturbed – and, fantastically, the morning woes I described yesterday, were nowhere to be found. Bliss!
~
The gorgeous red berries of the rowan tree are an autumn feast for blackbirds and thrushes, and later for visiting redwings and fieldfares. If you look at their bottoms, they have a five pointed star – which could have given it its age-old reputation for being the ‘most powerful and magical’ of trees. The five pointed star being used for at least 2,500 years as a magical symbol of all things from goddesses to the universe itself.

Finches and warblers love a rowan to nest in, and pollinators are fed by their beautiful cream flowers in Spring. The leaves are food for several moths, one is the Pug, which sadly, doesn’t look anything like its doggy counterpart. Squirrels store the berries for their winter feasting, and deer eat the leaves and fallen berries off the ground. Pine martens are also quite partial to a berry or two too! Lots of insects are attracted to the rowan, providing a tasty lunch for some of the insect eating bats we have. Quite frankly, the rowan, is utterly brilliant for our wildlife.

For centuries the rowan has been wrapped up in Folklore, it saved Thor, and protected the spirits of the dead at Celtic burial sites (there’s one in our local cemetery too!). In Scotland, it was so revered that it was unthinkable to use any part of the rowan tree apart from its berries, and you definitely did not cut its bark with an iron knife, doing so could upset its spirit guardian and destroy its protective powers, and if you cut one down? Well, you were doomed!

Rowans were traditionally planted near houses and farm buildings, and small branches and twigs were weaved into livestock tails, or worn as a talisman for their protection. One old Celtic name for it translates as “wizards’ tree” which, frankly, is enough to make me want to plant seventeen of them immediately.

People (probably not the Scots at the time) carried little pieces of rowan for protection too, to ward off negative enchantments and all kinds of jiggory-pokery – and the red of those beautiful berries has long been regarded as the colour of protection.

Whilst its magic began in the lore of the folk centuries ago, and apart from it being pretty gorgeous to the eyeballs, the important part rowan plays in nature is very real isn't it!

So I reckon our ancestors really were quite switched on actually – the rowan really is a special tree after all, and I will make it a treat to go and find as many as I can when I can walk properly again!

Reference:
The Woodland Trust
Trees for Life
The Good Life Society

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