Kate Hunter will now go forward to the National Business Awards final after scooping the regional trophy
An entrepreneur who took a leap of faith to swap an 18 year career for her own jewellery business has now been crowned the best in the region. Creative Kate Hunter made the bold decision to leave her job with the University of Hull ’s Business School at the start of the pandemic, having spent a number of years growing her bespoke jewellery piece business HMJ on a part-time basis.
The mum-of-two from Willerby has two businesses under the HMJ name – High Maintenance Jewellery, which sees her make bespoke earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and Happiness Making Jewellery, through which she hosts jewellery crafting workshop parties and events for birthdays, children, adults.
And just four years after going full-time – two of which were spent pivoting to online Zoom crafting parties in lockdown – Kate has won an award at England’s Business Awards for the Best Jewellery Business in the Yorkshire region. Now the self-taught jewellery designer and maker has told of her joy after being named as a grand finalist in the National Awards ceremony, taking place in Birmingham in November.
Winners were chosen following submissions on company achievements as well as votes from the public and customers. She told how her regional win left her shaking, and of her pride at making it to the grand final.
Kate, who has a son Logan, 14, and daughter Harmony, 12, said: “The event was lovely – in all honesty I just thought I’d made it as a finalist and that was enough for me. I thought it would be amazing if I won but if I didn’t I was pleased to have got this far because I’d already been recognised for my business and my work.
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“So when they announced it, I was just shaking. I was in such pleasant shock and it was overwhelming, but amazing. I was on such a high. And then the next day I got a letter through saying because I’d won the region, I now go through to the grand final.”
While crafting pieces of jewellery has always brought Kate joy, sharing that passion with others has become a big driver for her business. She has also been chosen to host workshops at myriad charities and organisations around the region, including the NHS – visiting hospitals in Wellness Weeks to help doctors, nurses and other staff to make jewellery – Teenage Cancer Trust and Home from Hospital.
She said: “When lockdown came in all the shops were closed so people did shop online a lot more, and we were like the middle people – they would purchase off the website but then I would do all the gift-wrapping and send it straight on, so it worked really well.
“But I had quite a lot of children’s gift shop parties booked in – I had to think outside the box so I took it all online, got familiar with Zoom and would deliver boxes full of the craft pieces to their homes before then hosting the parties online.
“When lockdown settled down I started getting lots of different areas like Teenage Cancer Trust and Home from Hospital that found by being creative it was quite an emotional release, and it’s just grown from there. “
She added: “I’ve been into schools and have bookings coming in from September when schools go back – it’s brilliant. It’s so lovely to connect people with jewellery and I know people think ‘jewellery, you just wear it’ but to actually create something and be proud of it has really grown.”