It’s been five years since I won and completed my blog on the website and so I thought that perhaps it was time for an update as there have been quite a few changes in both my personal and business life since I wrote that .
I’ve retired on ill-health grounds, moved to a village outside Peterborough and post covid my daughter and family also moved up to the area. Having them just 15 minutes away is a joy and my eldest grandson is now my market buddy and next year I’m going to make use of his maths skills when it comes to completing my tax return.
Businesswise I’ve also made changes including modifying my business name to Paper2pearls by Gilli’s flowers. This reflects the wider range of what I make and my new focus on creating environmentally friendly and sustainable jewellery including using old copies of classic novels and vintage sheet music to create my origami pieces.
Over the 18 months or so I have been working on this, finding ways to turn unwanted and waste materials such as plastic bottles and their lids, DVDs, bubblewrap and more into jewellery. My packaging is plastic free and I have linked with Ecologi so that a tree is planted for every purchase as a way of giving to the planet and at the end of my first year doing this I had funded the planting of 396 trees. I am not about greenwashing and details of my 2022 sustainability audit, glossary of terms and ethical policy are all published on my website.
I know my tiny business is not going to save the world, my aim is to raise awareness of how much plastic and other non-biodegradable waste there is and the difference that could be made if we all used less.
