Julie Steele
Marram Blue - Handmade Jewellery, Freelance copywriter, writer & editor
Key outcomes
● Green initiative - using recycled silver, primarily recycled and recyclable jewellery packaging and marketing materials
● Collaboration - Growbiz introduced Julie to two local business owners, who now use her copywriting service
● Community wealth building - local businesses using local copywriting services
Julie’s Story
Julie lives in Nethy Bridge with her husband and two young daughters. With a work background in law, fiction and legal editorial work, tourism and the third sector, as for many the Covid pandemic prompted a re-evaluation of Julie’s work life and childcare provision. Julie had started making beaded and silver jewellery over 12 years previously, first with evening classes in silver jewellery making at Leith School of Art in Edinburgh and then learning beading at workshops and from books at home. In June 2020 she decided to take the plunge and embarked upon the Jewellers Academy online Diploma in Silver Jewellery with the intention of setting up her own business, to allow her to work in a flexible way around her family responsibilities, doing what she loves best.
Julie completed the Diploma in July 2021, and passed with distinction. She first met with Karen Martin, Enterprise Facilitator, to discuss her start-up business plans in September 2021. The topics of discussion at that first meeting included insurance, financial records, pricing, craft fairs, workshop plans and website building. Karen helped Julie to choose two or three aspects to focus on immediately, and introduced Julie to her colleague Caron Ironside, Growbiz Enterprise Facilitator supporting creative business clients. Caron’s understanding of the challenges encountered by creative businesses was very helpful to Julie in deciding to scale back her expectations of what she could achieve in the hours she had available to work every week, as well as supporting her to decide on a few key goals to work towards by the end of 2021. Through these discussions, Julie realised that she needed another income stream while she built her jewellery business.
Karen introduced Julie to local entrepreneurs Jennifer Macdonald-Nethercott of Strath Communications, and to Hannah Mitchell of IRL Education UK. Both of these introductions have resulted in ongoing collaboration, with Julie providing copywriting services to support the others’ businesses. Thus Julie has been able to utilise her previous skills and experience in a slightly different way to gain an extra income stream. And as she loves both writing and making, she’s very happy about that! In the future she’d like to secure enough ongoing regular writing work to provide a little more financial security while she uses the rest of her available work time to concentrate on Marram Blue.
In relation to Marram Blue, so far Julie has created her logo, set up her social media pages, obtained adequate insurance, opened a separate bank account and began keeping financial records, and registered her hallmark with the Edinburgh Assay Office. She is selling her jewellery in local cafe Nethy House, and had a table at the Boat of Garten Christmas Fayre in December 2021 where she made several sales. She has worked on a few direct customer commissions, and is now working towards refining her packaging, creating her first collection, experimenting with delivering jewellery-making workshops to local and visitors, and planning to build her website later this year. Karen has suggested that Julie take part in the Growbiz mentorship programme to help build her confidence and hone her time management skills. With Julie’s shed waiting to be converted into a jewellery workshop, and a new arts venue being developed in Grantown-on-Spey, there is a lot of potential for this local business to thrive in the years to come.