Hi, my name’s Bronya and I am the owner of Earth and Epoxy. If you’re interested to learn a little about how all this came to be then please read on. I should be working right now anyway.
I started making jewellery back in 2013, I'd come across some epoxy resin on eBay and thought I’d give it a go. I didn’t think to buy moulds like any normal, logical person would do and instead decided to make a mould out of clay, line the mould with cling film and pour the resin in. To say this turned out badly would be an understatement.
What’s important is that I kept going.
In 2013, I was trying to get into a full-time office-based position and applied for every job I could. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a job without experience and I couldn’t get experience without a job. So I came to a decision: if no one was willing to give me a job so I can gain experience, I’ll start my own business and give myself the skills I need.
I set up Poison Hoax and in the 12 months that followed, I achieved roughly 18 sales. This business was only about giving myself the skills I needed to get a job and it worked because, in September 2014, I finally got offered a full-time office job. Over the years, I would enrol in a part time university course, that I am currently 3 years into, and work my way up to an IT role I adored but that unfortunately resulted in redundancy in March 2020
During lockdown, like most of you, I was bored. So I installed TikTok. I saw so many incredible artists making a living out of creating and felt excited about making things again. Since I was, once again, having difficulties getting a job following my redundancy (of course, I'm not the only one) I thought that maybe I could give it another go. I got all my old materials out and spent a few weeks messing around before deciding on creating jewellery with natural materials
After a while, I started to think that I wanted to get back to running a business off my creations. This time however, instead of using it as a stepping stone in my career, it could BE my career. I am able to utilise everything I'm learning in my uni degree and to top it off, I'll actually enjoy my job. I have a long way to go before I'm perfect at the craft but if I work hard I know it will only be a matter of time.