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Becoming a businesswoman - how hard can it be?

OK, so last year at the Edinburgh Festival I saw some really, really beautiful bracelets. They were made out of old vintage brooches, beads, pearls and various bits and bobs.

They were also incredibly expensive.

I thought to myself - how hard can it be? I bet I could do that. Then, like most ideas (at the time I also decided it would be a nice idea to write a stageplay, and the sketch show my friend Luke and I keep chatting about never seems to happen), it faded into the background. But there's a recession on, as we keep being told, and the idea of making pretty, unique jewellery as Christmas presents was very tempting. So a year and a half after the initial idea, I finally got hold of some vintage jewellery, dismantled some jewellery of my own, and fashioned a charm bracelet - I'll find a pic as soon as poss.

Then I thought, I wonder if other people would like what I do? I wonder if other people are sick of paying bumped up prices just to have something that you can't buy on the High Street? I guess the answer's probably yes.

So as of today I am setting up in business. It's called Made With Love, and you get to watch every step - from the ramshackle beginnings to (hopefully) a glorious future! Any feedback, tips, website links etc will be hugely appreciated. I have a MySpace site and a Flickr site with photo diaries - although there's not very much on there right now - and I'd love it if you all joined in with your own comments and pictures. Then when we make it to the fashion pages of Vogue we can all be very proud of ourselves!

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