Sapphire's Story

Sapphire Frills is a small handmade accessories business based in Mattishall, Norfolk.

Hello, my name is Sapphire and I design and make everything here in Mattishall alongside the help of my small team. We mainly focus on producing handmade lightweight, statement earrings from acrylic, polymer clay, resin and wood. After 6 years in business, I have a lot of experience with these materials and have perfected our products down to a tee. We now produce a whole range of products including earrings, hair clips and key rings which are handmade by me and my small team based here in Mattishall. Each product is designed by myself with the input of team and my lovely customers and are handmade in small batches making each piece unique to the next. We also sell glasses chains, branded earring stands and claw clips which we select specifically to fit our branding.

 

Why did I start Sapphire Frills you may wonder, well...

After graduating from Norwich University of Arts in 2015 with a 1st class degree in Fashion, I moved to London to work on the design team at Ted Baker. London was a lonely place and I found it hard to settle. 5 months later, I moved back to Norwich and started saving to set up my own business. I always knew this was something I wanted to do! Initially, I launched a menswear brand, designing and hand-making t-shirts. But, after 2 years in April 2019, I found my passion, started making earrings and Sapphire Frills was born. I can honestly say I’ve never looked back.  

Originally, I started my business with my mum and sister in mind and at this point, it was only myself working on the business part-time. My mum and sister both have super sensitive ears and can’t wear standard statement jewellery from your usual high street shops. I felt like everyone needed to be able to wear fun earrings so I was on a mission to fix this. It took hours and hours of research, but I was never going to find the answer overnight. I finally found surgical steel, an earring backing material which was NICKEL FREE & HYPOALLERGENIC (Nickel being the material that most people are usually allergic to). So even to this day my standard stud earring backs and hook earrings are still made from surgical steel making them nickel free and hypoallergenic. I have also introduced a sterling silver option for those super sensitive ears but for clarity, my mum and sister can both wear my standard earring backs because they are of much higher grade than what your usual high street shop would use.

So here’s a bit about my journey so far…

I started by selling my creations on my Etsy shop. I landed my first wholesale order in February 2020 and launched my own website in September 2020. I took a leap of faith in May 2020 and quit my part time job to work on my business full time. From June 2020, my sister also started working for my small business and became full time in October 2021. I had my little girl Zia in June 2022 and only took 2 months maternity leave. Things took a bit of a dip after having my little girl but by July 2023 things were booming again. Since our first year in business we have more than quadrupled our turnover and are now a team of 4 hand making all of your products in sunny Norfolk. I have now sold thousands of earrings via my online shops, at events and to my 20 stockists across the UK. I have been lucky enough to have had many repeat customers who share their beautiful purchases and experiences over social media which has helped the growth of my business massively. It is the most rewarding part of my job and the reason why I began Sapphire Frills, simply to make people happy.

 If you’d like to continue to follow my journey, check out my INSTAGRAM page @SapphireFrills  or sign up to my email list which is located at the bottom of on my homepage. I hope you enjoyed reading a little bit more information about myself and my business and I look forward to welcoming you on my journey, there is still so much more we are going to achieve! Lots of Love S x