Posts in Sadie's musings
Handmade wedding jewellery - pearl and crystal bracelets for a French wedding!
handmade wedding jewellery UK

Well here is a sneak peek into my very own wedding day and the jewellery I made for myself, my bridesmaids, and the VIP mothers of the bride and groom!

If you know me you may be surprised that I decided to make very simple, classic, neutral coloured jewellery for myself and my bridesmaids. I am never one to shy away from a colourful statement piece! However, my wedding decor theme was very colourful - bright pinks, blues, oranges, and so I wanted to tone down my jewellery because I didn’t want to look OTT and would have to live with any colour-clashing decisions for the rest of my life :D

Chris and I booked a 14th Century French chateau for our summer wedding and wanted a laid-back, elegant, wedding theme with splashes of colour. My bridesmaids were wearing bright jewel-toned blue dresses, and the flower girls were wearing pink floral dresses, and all would wear pink flowers in their hair and carry colourful bouquets.


And so onto the jewellery…

For my own wedding day jewellery - I had intended to make my own chunky baroque pearl earrings, but then actually found my dream pair of rose quartz and pearl drop earrings online, so I bought them instead!

I would be wearing a large crystal hair comb and my antique turquoise and diamond ring, and so decided to make myself three pearl and crystal bracelets to wear with them on the big day.

(Non jewellery-related, but In case you love shoes as much as I do - I chose Betsey Johnson Blue Stela glitter bridal shoes in soft pink.) Click here to see more of the shoes I had on my wedding shoe shortlist!

For the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom, I made them both simple creamy freshwater pearl and glass crystal bracelets as part of their wedding day gifts.

For my Maid of Honour and bridesmaids - they each had two pearl and crystal 24 carat gold plated cuff bracelets, matching my own.

For the flower girls - both little Ivy and Bella wore matching pink and white peanut pearl bracelets - so cute and playful!

I didn’t get many photos of the jewellery on the actual day - oops! But you can get the idea from the below photos :-)

Are you planning for your wedding?

Sadie x

And here are some more wedding blog posts -

The wedding shoes I drooled over.
My handmade wedding favours - cute little colourful bag charms.
More Shh by Sadie wedding jewellery.

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bridal, custom orders, behind the scenes, Sadie's musings, pearlsSadie Hawker
The beginnings of a small jewellery business part one... kitchen tables and Mighty Mighty Markets
Here I am at my very first market at Mighty Mighty Markets on Cuba Street, Wellington in 2011

Here I am at my very first market at Mighty Mighty Markets on Cuba Street, Wellington in 2011

Hi everyone!

This week has been a time of reflection for me. Today marks six years to the date that I released my first ever ‘official’ collection, Sueños del Sol. And on Friday I had the pleasure of talking to a whole lecture theatre (eek!) of final year marketing students at Plymouth University about Shh by Sadie and the journey that has brought me and my million beads to where it stands today.

In preparation for my talk I sat down and spent an afternoon trawling through my old Shh photo archives and, oh my goodness, it was amazing remembering some of the jewels I’ve made, markets I’ve attended, people I’ve worked with and all of the ups and downs along the way.

When I began teaching myself to make jewellery in 2011 I never dreamed that anything would come of it, let alone that anyone would buy it - it was simply a new exploration, a new hobby, and I enjoyed wearing the earrings and bracelets I’d made for myself.

Shh by Sadie handmade statement jewellery

Working full time in my ‘day job’, I soon started attending markets on Saturdays with my borrowed table cloth and vintage teacups and saucers to display my jewels on (the teacups often had more interest than the jewellery!). I just wanted to sell jewellery so that I could go home and make more. (Well, that hasn’t changed!)

I was also selling online via Etsy, and I still don’t know how I managed to actually sell anything with the terrible photos I took! I remember taking my first product shots late one Saturday night, on a badly lit kitchen table, balanced on teapots and teacups (the jewellery, not me), because I was so eager to get my Shh by Sadie Etsy shop up and open. Yet people did buy the jewellery (which was at that time mostly brooches made of felt and fabric, button and flower earrings, and simple bead earrings and necklaces), and often came back for more!

I ALWAYS appreciated it when my lovely friends visited me at markets and came and had a giggle with me :-)

I ALWAYS appreciated it when my lovely friends visited me at markets and came and had a giggle with me :-)

Shh by Sadie at Matchbox Studios, Wellington

From there I went on to be stocked in my first few real shops - Rex Royale and Emma on Cuba Street, along with The White Room Gallery in Island Bay. Markets continued, stockists grew, and I was even featured in a few blogs, publications and the Mighty Mighty Market poster plastered across Wellington that I had to close my eyes every time I walked past because it was so hideous… :D

I’ve posted some photos of the early Shh days here - hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I did. You’ll see that there was always a love of pink! And a lot of skulls back then too!

If you remember any of these Shh jewels or markets, I’d love to hear from you or see your photos.

I’ll post the next phase of the Shh journey next week.

Sadie x

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And if you made it this far - here’s that Mighty Mighty Market poster!!

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behind the scenes, collections, events, Sadie's musingsSadie HawkerComment
Bicester Village Shopping Visit Review

I recently visited Bicester Village for the first time. I’d heard so much about it, it seemed everywhere I looked people were mentioning Bicester Village as THE place to shop and so I was very excited to get there myself.

Bicester Shopping Village

From Plymouth it’s a fair old drive - 4.5 hours each way with slight traffic delays. I was attending a wedding in Oxford in September and so it was the perfect opportunity to visit Bicester.

And I left empty handed!

For those of you who know me, that must be quite a surprise as I love shopping, and I love THINGS! All things! Everything! But I left Bicester that day empty handed for the following reasons:

  1. Bicester Village is a designer outlet, but these are still designer prices, so as I’m unfortunately not made of money, I carefully considered anything that caught my eye. And managed to peel myself away from them!

  2. I do love an occasional splurge item (I count my Chanel handbags amongst my prized possessions), but I try not to buy things for the sake of it, or because it is a good deal (I have done this SO many times in the past and am really working to refrain myself in these instances!).

  3. There were no Chanel or Tiffany shops there (these would have been my weak spots). Haha.

  4. If you follow my Instagram you’d know I’ve been trying to sort through my storage container FULL of clothes, shoes, bags, any other things that my awful magpie-hoarder-self has collected for the last 12 years. As a result of my hoarding-detox I’ve been really trying to use the things I already have and not buy more!

  5. In short, I’ve made a resolution with myself to be less wasteful and only invest in pieces that I genuinely love and/or need.

Pics below from my Instagram stories on the day

My favourite shops there were Furla (I was very tempted by a bag but refrained myself), Coccinelle (the softest most gorgeous handbags), Fendi, Kate Spade (which had VERY good discounts!), Molten Brown and the cosmetics outlet. I was also toying with the idea of buying the Tom Ford Soleil Blanc travel set, but again, I didn’t NEED it. (WELL DONE SADIE! haha)

margarita cocktail Bicester village


The village was really busy, but parking wasn’t too difficult and we managed to grab a seat for lunch as soon as we got there too (I also had a margarita!). My tip would be to skip the restaurant and opt for one of the many little eatery stalls instead - they’re much quicker and cheaper, so more time and money for shopping!

Bicester Village is definitely worth a visit, and had I seen something that I really absolutely loved or needed, I’d have bought it. On this occasion, that wasn’t so. I left the village feeling a mix of disappointment at not buying anything from the place i’d wanted to visit for so long, and pride in the fact I’d not bought anything just for the sake of it.

Have you been to Bicester or any other shopping outlets? What were your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below :-)


Sadie x

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travel, Sadie's musingsSadie Hawker
Coping with the British summer heatwave!

Hey there peeps!

Well this summer has been a scorcher so far, and to be honest I've struggled with the temperature and have ended up wearing the same three strappy dresses on repeat a lot of the time! (This dress is two of them - I have it in plain black and navy polkadot. You can dress it up or down so many ways, with heels or flip flops, with or without a belt...)

My feet are also cut to bits from different sandals rubbing me in the heat, so I've had to wear my flip flops a lot. I'm still not complaining about the weather, though, it's just taken some adjustments for me to get used to it!

So to mix things up and add a bit of personality to the same-old strappy dresses, I've been wearing a lot of colourful bracelets and handbags - as you can see here! They also make me happy just looking at them - I love colourful accessories :-D

What are your summer essentials?
Let me know how you've been surviving this heat by leaving a comment below  :-)

Keep cool and colourful!

Sadie x

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style, Sadie's musingsSadie HawkerComment
Port Eliot Festival 2018 - culture, cocktails and stately homes
port eliot

Last weekend I went to my first ever British festival at Port Eliot (I say British, because I did attend WOMAD for a day in New Zealand several years ago!).

Being relatively new to Plymouth I had never heard of the festival before, but now that I've experienced it I will definitely be going back! Set in the Port Eliot estate the festival sprawls across acres of grass, gardens, woodland and atmospherically ageing buildings.

As the festival itself describes it "Port Eliot is a festival unlike any other. Whether you’re swimming in the estuary, picnicking under a 300 year old tree, rocking out at the Park Stage, canoeing on the river, catching an intimate gig in the church, watching a cooking demo in the Big Kitchen or dancing ‘till the wee hours in the Boogie Round – our home is yours for the weekend".

One of my highlights was a cooking demonstration by Jasmine Hemsley, she spoke to us about her Ayurvedic lifestyle and made savoury puda pancakes for us to taste. Another highlight was the duo Hymn for Her - check out their foot-stomping country blues music, it'll get you moving!

See below for a taster of the weekend - as you can see, the weather decided to turn grey and rainy for the entire weekend, but it didn't dampen our spirits! ;-)

Sadie x

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travel, Sadie's musingsSadie Hawker