Harriet Kelsall Jewellery Design
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With Christmas only weeks away, our designers have made some beautiful new engagement rings just in time for Christmas that are now on display in both our Hertfordshire studio and our Cambridge Showroom.

So come see us and take a look at around. And why not do this tomorrow with a glass of mulled wine at our Christmas jewellery event Christmas jewellery event at our Hertfordshire studio between 9.45-5pm.

These are all one off commissioned piece ready to walk away with on the day to make someone very happy.

And some beautiful rings with very Christmassy coloured gemstones.

Hi

Our Jewellery Christmas Gifts collection is live on our sister site www.purple-label.com. We've put together some ideas for ideal Christmas presents if you're looking for something special this year.

We've just added a new collection called Everyday Ears(!) which is a group of brilliant earrings that we think would be a great addition to your wardrobe to wear all the time.

Tim

Our winter jewellery collection is now live on our sister site www.purple-label.com, with our selection of handmade jewellery perfect for the season.

Harriet

My son, Thomas, is 6. At school they recently talked about Fairtrade products and what this meant. He was really interested and enthusiastic about that. So when he heard me talking about Fairtrade gold engagement rings at home he was really keen to talk about it and to learn more about it. Then he wanted to pop into my studio and hold some actual Fairtrade gold. Then he decided that he would really like to actually make something in this gold.

We have done jewellery making together - but really only beading and wire-work and never at the bench.

So this weekend, I took him to the bench and we sat down together and made two little tiny charms from Fairtrade gold, one will be for him and one for his sister. He did really well and even did most of the annealing (yes I did trust a 6 year old with a blow torch - am I mad?). I think he quite enjoyed most of it even though he did say "emery paper is really boring, mummy".

The two little charms are now going off to the assay office to be hallmarked and struck with the Fairtrade and Fair-minded stamps.

When the lady who organises the certification at the Fairtrade foundation heard about it, she sent him a lovely e-mail with some pictures of the mines and the miners on which he loved. He is looking forward to printing out the pictures for a school project and telling all of his school friends about it.

Coincidentally, he is playing Caspar in his school play who is the king who carries the gold. He has drawn out a Fairtrade logo and trotted off to school with it this morning because he wants to stick it onto the pretend gold that he will be carrying because, he says, "Jesus would definitely have preferred Fairtrade gold, even though it wasn't actually invented back then". I'm hoping his teachers will see the funny side of it.

Harriet

PS - If your kids are interested in jewellery making, don't forget to bring them along to our charity day this Saturday http://www.hkjewellery.co.uk/web/page/showroomevents where they can do some beading and watch the craftspeople at work.

Hi

There is a small chance that something of ours might be featured in the Frank Skinner show on BBC2 this Thursday which is about engagements and proposing...fingers crossed we make it past the edit! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zvdl7

To help us with our Christmas rush, we're offering 10% off all the jewellery on our sister site www.purple-label.com for this weekend only.

Just enter this code - F0OIYUVSSDS8 - at the checkout to claim your discount.

Happy early Christmas shopping!

Harriet

I would like to welcome you all to our Christmas Jewellery Event in aid of the NSPCC at our Hertfordshire studio in Halls green on the 26th of November from 9.45-5pm.

You can start your festivities this year by joining us for a glass of mulled wine and having a look around our beautiful showroom.

You will be able to meet and chat with our designers and bring some of your own jewellery to discuss maybe having a redesign. See our talented Goldsmiths doing different demonstrations in how we make some of stunning engagement rings and have a browse of our different jewellery collections for christmas presents.

We are also having our ever popular kid's jewellery making workshops. For a small donation to charity your kids can be kept busy creating a necklace or beading a tiara - this is a great way for them to make some Christmas presents.

As well as all of this we are having a charity raffle in aid of the NSPCC where you can win some of our jewellery or vouchers.

Hope to see you all at this event and we can start the Christmas celebration.

I do find mountain inspired engagement rings particularly interesting. For me it suggests future ambitions and a determination to overcome challenges and of course the ring looks so beautiful especially if you choose a wonderful and unusual trilliant or triangular cut gemstone like this previous ready to wear ring

This beautiful ring was inspired by clear, crisp, snow capped mountains. The diamond is actually recycled (it used to be a very glam necklace!) and has been reconditioned. It has a beautiful highly sparkly cut and its quality is H PK1. It is held at the corners. The band of the ring splits to emphasise the triangular cut of the diamond and the setting sits above the band so that a flat, unshaped wedding band would slip beneath this for a neat and tidy look without needing to have a shaped ring made.

I really like the look of this ring and something else occurred to me, the three corners could represent the 'past, present and future' all equidistant and therefore of equal importance to the wearer. If you would like us to design you an amazingly inspiring bespoke engagement rings then do get in touch and don't forget we can help you to recycle previously worn items of jewellery

You can also win a fab pair of chandelier style hematite and Swarovski crystal earrings here! http://hazelsworldofjoy.blogspot.com/2011/11/harriet-kelsall-jewellery-giveaway.html

Harriet

We are delighted to announce that we are the first UK Independent business to pass the Responsible Jewellery Council's (RJC) Certification.

The RJC certification process in simple terms is a process whereby you hold your jewellery business up to a series of ethical, human rights, social and environmental standards laid out in the documentation. If your business falls short, you fix it, until you feel you are ready to pass.

These standards include not only chain of custody stuff such as your procedures on training staff on conflict diamonds and ensuring you aren't using diamonds from outside the Kimberly process, but a broad range of other things such as whether you are fully complying with UK employment and health and safety law. Once complete you are independently audited and if successful receive your certification.

I thought long and hard about whether my business could afford the man hours to go through the process but I'm glad we did because we did find areas of the business that needed improving, we learnt a lot and we are now stronger for having done it. Actually I feel my business is much tidier and more ready for future growth now that we have been through the process too.

We were one of the first members of the RJC and I was always keen to be a part of it because most of the businesses involved are huge jewellery businesses and I wanted to make sure that smaller businesses who actually might be doing even better ethical things didn't get left behind.

The process of going through it all took us a quite a bit of work and time and at times it was hard and quite technical because the documentation is difficult to read and non UK specific but I wanted to be the first UK small independent to show that it can be done and isn't just for the "big boys". Furthermore as a result of us having achieved this, Simon Rianer the CEO of the British Jewellers Association (BJA) has said that once he has a few members keen to go through the certification that the BJA will then work on providing tools and guidelines to help them through it. So I am urging other small jewellery businesses to get in touch with the BJA and get the ball rolling so that we can all be more responsible companies.

The current backdrop of the jewellery industry right now makes it more important than ever for us jewelers to do what we can.

I have two overriding reasons for going through this process as follows:

Firstly, my business was one of the first 20 jewellers to launch Fairtrade gold back in February, and am delighted to be a part of such a brilliant thing. I also believe passionately that whilst Fairtrade gold is obviously fantastic, it isn't the full story and much more can be achieved ethically in the industry as a whole. I would hate it if companies stocked Fairtrade products and left it at that - so much more can and should be done in other areas of the industry. The RJC certification is part of this and there is more that we can and will do in the future too to gradually improve things wherever we can.

Secondly, I have heard mutterings that the RJC was set up by a few big businesses making themselves feel better about their horrible ethical histories - but I hope I have proved that this isn't the case and it genuinely is good for any business, big or small, to hold their ethical, human rights, social and environmental standards up for independent scrutiny, find areas that need improving (as we did) and then fix them.

Harriet

It is that time of year again where christmas is right around the corner and to help you along the way with your christmas shopping for your loved ones we now have our beautiful Christmas present collection on our purple label website.

Happy shopping everyone

Harriet

Hi there

We have some roadworks on the way into Weston from the A1(M) today so there is a road diversion in place. There are yellow diversion signs everywhere, but basically you will need to drive towards Baldock centre, then turn right after the George IV pub towards Weston. Once you have gone up that windy lane and come out in Weston, turn right, then left (into Mill Lane). At the end of Mill lane turn left and then you are on the correct road to Halls Green...so you just keep going along there for about 2 miles and you will find our studio on the left.

See you later!

We have some stunning and very unique ready to wear engagement rings here in our Halls Green showroom. Some are fresh out into the cabinets this week and having found myself staring at some of the new additions I thought I would share them with you.

One of my favourite new rings is this eye catching and unusual 3.95ct star sapphire set in 9ct white gold. The sapphire is a beautiful deep grey to black coloured oval cabochon perfectly accompanied by four brilliant cut diamonds in the tapering shoulders of the twist design. It seems so fitting at this time of year with the nights drawing in and fireworks night approaching.

This similarly eye catching yet simple twist design holds an oval 5x3mm 0.23ct HSI diamond in a mobius twist style. The diamond is set in palladium and represents an infinite twist of feminine curves in a 3mm wide band which tapers around the stone.

Twist designs are very popular with those who would like something a little different for their engagement ring and twist style rings look great with a variety of sizes of central stone as demonstrated with the two rings above. A twist can be elegant and petite with a slim band or bold and dramatic with a heavier band and large central stone.

As all of our rings are made from scratch in our Hertfordshire workshop we really can bring your ideas to life and whether you have an exact specification for the perfect ring or simply know that your partner loves the colour purple, our talented designers are here to make the exciting step of choosing an engagement ring a very special and memorable process. Please pop in to browse our fabulous collection of ready to wear rings or contact us to find out more and to organise an appointment with one of our designers. We'd love to hear from you.