Original subtitles

Our country is full of incredible makers dreaming of turning their talent into

money -making careers.

It would mean everything to be able to do this full -time.

So, with a team of fantastic professional mentors... I know your

know what you're capable of doing.

I run a one -of -a -kind bootcamp showing them how to do just that.

Perfect. My precious moment. I'll go share that. Yes.

Now, I'm on my way to catch up with those who have made their dreams come

Hello. There he is. Hello, mate.

I'll be hearing about their amazing achievement.

I've been able to put down... This is my full -time job.

A little bit under £40 ,000.

Around £50 ,000. £50 ,000?

Yeah.

You can kind of say I am living the dream. I

think that's fair to say.

Whether they're trying to grow an existing business or turn a part -time

into a full -time career, the makers that come to my bootcamp all want to

money from their talents.

Today, we'll be catching up with two in their own studios who have done just

that.

Later, mentor Alistair will be heading to Devon to check in on glass artist

Emmy, who's found worldwide success.

I've got a touring gallery that's taking my work internationally, taking my work

to Singapore, Texas, New York, where I had a sell -out show.

Before that, I'll be visiting wildlife lover Sarah in Yorkshire.

I first met her at my boot camp in spring 2022, when she came looking for

to make a career change just a few months after she'd started working with

When the pandemic hit, I was a professional photographer, and obviously

everything just...

The birds were singing and the sun was shining and I just realised that that

what life was about.

I got my hands on ceramics, some clay.

There's nothing between you and the material and it just feels so raw and so

natural. It's like you're working with the earth.

To help Sarah make the switch from photography to sculpting, I teamed her

with Belfast -based ceramicist Derek Wilson.

Sarah is really, really interesting because within such a short period of

her work is already at a certain standard.

And I think already, you know, you can kind of see the potential in her

practice.

To work out how Sarah could best make money from her ceramics, I set her three

challenges. First up, I wanted to see what she could produce in volume.

And as a nature lover, she decided to make a collection of small bird

priced at 20 to 40 pounds.

each one hand -shaped and decorated with a variety of different coloured glazes.

The first step is to take two bowls of clay and then what we'll do is create

like a little pinch pot. So you put your thumb in the middle and then just

carefully going round, create a little bowl.

Then you make two of those and then create some score lines on each of them,

like a crosshatch.

And we do this because it'll help them stick together so it doesn't come apart.

And then I use a little bit of water just to wet the edges a little bit and

carefully pop them together.

Once that's set, the next step is to shape it into the bird form.

Sarah's birds seemed relatively quick to make, but Derek wanted to talk to her

about making their production even faster.

What's quite important about these pieces is that they all are individual,

they all have their own kind of characters. Definitely.

When it comes to producing them, is there an easier way to speed up the

production range?

I did think about throwing them as little balls, but by the time I figured

how to throw them and create spheres and do it consistently to make them look

like spheres, it's probably just easier and quicker for me to make them by hand.

They're just nice and easy to form. It's definitely something to look into.

Whilst Sarah continued making her small birds, I asked Derek to join me in my

marquee to discuss her second item.

Before she came to my boot camp, I asked her to make a more expensive high -end

piece, and she decided to showcase a sculpture of a family of hares,

with a metallic glaze.

As there were multiple pieces involving a lengthier production time along with

extra material and firing costs, she priced them at £1 ,200.

They're really lovely. They've got a good energy and they've got a real kind

presence. She's reflecting this kind of character of these kind of animals.

It would be quite nice to see Sarah maybe scale up and to kind of push it to

keep that freedom in her sculpting. To make a big, massive one. Yeah,

definitely. Yeah, I like that.

To kind of challenge herself a little bit.

Sarah's hoping to get £1 ,200 for the hair with the two babies. It's probably

just a bit expensive for somebody that's just kind of like getting kind of the

early stages of their career.

Obviously, she doesn't want to be underselling herself, but she doesn't

be overselling. a work at the moment as well down by the bluebell woods sarah

was working away on her volume piece and having finished the wet work on her

collection of small birds she brought along some kiln fired ones so she could

move on to the next step he's now ready to underglaze under glazing is

designed so that the color you paint it on is more closely

what it's going to turn out like. And there's other things you can do. You can

combine underglaze with glaze and overglaze and luster and the world's

oyster, basically, when it comes to ceramics.

Despite liking the idea of Sarah's birds, Derek was concerned that making

one by hand was too time -consuming for them to be commercially successful.

But here was a man with a plan.

I just wanted to talk about some other production methods.

And one idea was to introduce some press moulds, some simple press moulds. So

I've brought actually an example here from a recent project.

So this is actually just a reproduced ceramic spoon.

So for yourself, we would be actually looking at taking one of your pieces and

making a very simple press mould. I like handmade because it's personal.

Would this... a press molding technique do you think it detracts from it a

little bit you can still add characters to these pieces you know they're still

they're still one -off pieces the smaller pieces it would make sense to

them quite similar yeah and then i can spend my time giving them the character

and exactly exactly they're still handmade pieces and individual pieces

still have that the kind of qualities that you're kind of looking for which is

really really important it is important to me yeah

So the moulds, if I can keep the individuality of each piece, then that

make sense to use because it makes the quality more consistent and

people will know more about what they're getting.

Yeah, I think it's got legs. I'll look into it.

Back at her workstation, Sarah applied the finishing touches to her small bird

sculptures.

One of the reasons why I love ceramics so much is because...

You can get lots of different colours, lots of different effects.

It's just getting really creative.

Sarah's joyful ceramic birds took her about half an hour each to sculpt and

glaze, and she priced them at £20 to £40.

Derek, what do you think?

I think they look really good, Sarah. I think they have a lot of commercial

potential. The one thing that I would kind of say is that there's kind of a

of variation in them. You know, it might be quite nice to see runs of each one

to kind of like streamline it. Very simple press molds. It will speed up

production and bring some consistency to your practice as well.

Yeah, to help make high volume.

About the price, what do you think? I kind of feel like some of the larger

pieces you could probably go up a little bit more.

Fantastic. Thank you.

Sarah gave her first two items her best shot and for her final task I asked her

to make her favorite piece to see if it could become a business building

product. She chose to create a head study of a long tail tip priced at 600

800 pounds which she decorated with a metallic glaze.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to build the layers up to start the form of

the shape so if we've got a solid foundation

because the clay is still quite wet it just makes it easier when we go higher

if it's all compressed and quite compact you just smush that together to form a

join okay

like so

and then if we press it down again just like we did with the first to compress

the clay what we need to do is just remove this gap

Over the next two to three hours, Sarah built up her sculpture one layer at a

time, carefully blending them together to avoid trapping any air in the piece.

When I'm building the coil, you see the shape?

That's the shape that I follow.

So we start off wide and then we go in, out a little bit and then in across the

top. And then I can do things like create the little beak and then I attach

and on it goes.

And then...

I'll put the eyes in last and it just gives it that character.

That'll go in there.

I will leave it to dry for quite a lot longer. Then I would apply a glaze and

then pop in the kiln and fire it to 1240 degrees.

Hopefully no disasters overnight and the kiln gods have been kind and that's the

finished piece.

Sarah finished off her head study with an eye -catching metallic glaze and she

gave it an asking price of 600 to 800 pounds.

What do you think, Derek?

What's really interesting is kind of the concept and the story and your kind of

passion about wildlife.

There's huge commercial viability. There's also room for development.

I know that you're kind of saying that they're head studies, but I kind of feel

like if they're going into kind of gallery pieces for kind of collectors

you need to think about the way that they are presented.

So whether that's kind of like using the plinth or something that kind of lifts

them. And there could be elements where you're kind of carrying on parts, so

you're kind of leaving something for the imagination.

I like that. I can imagine if it's up a little bit higher and it kind of carries

on a little bit.

Yeah. How about the price? Does that fit, do you think?

I feel like starting off lower, a bit lower, until you see how they sell, and

then you can gradually kind of develop and kind of work your price up a little

bit. Brilliant, thank you. Amazing. Well, well done, you. Thank you. Lots of

work ahead.

To help Sarah achieve her dream of becoming a full -time sculptor, we drew

action plan for her to take back to South Yorkshire.

First, she needed to use moulds to speed up the production of her small birds.

Next, we wanted her to scale up her large pieces even more.

Finally, she needed to price her work to sell.

For the next two months, Derek continued to guide Sarah as she worked on her

action plan.

She began by scaling up her larger pieces and was keen to show him how

on. I've got a rather large something to show you.

Oh, wow.

My goodness. So this is hair part two.

Okay, cool.

And what, does he look great?

I've not finished his head off yet, but... Yeah, he's definitely a nice

She also travelled to Oxfordshire to try and sell some of her work at a high

-end craft festival, including the scaled -up hair, which was priced at

I've got lots of hair!

She's off to a new home. I'm very pleased. I'm going to be sad because I'm

to miss her.

But, yeah, I'm so pleased that somebody liked my work enough to take it home.

And I wasn't shocked, I'll be honest with you. I don't think it's still quite

sunk in.

For eight weeks, Sarah worked hard to build her business.

And when she came back to the boot camp to report on her progress, she had some

exciting news.

I did make £870, which I was thrilled with. It was just so nice to be able to

sell my pieces to people that wanted to buy my pieces.

It's just an incredible feeling.

It's great.

It's all very good and very positive.

Well done.

To go from being a novice sculptor to making hundreds of pounds, even after

deducting costs in just a few months, was a brilliant achievement for Sarah

a sign of things to come.

Three and a half years later, I've come to an ever so slightly damp Yorkshire to

find out about the success she's had since I last saw her.

Ah! Dom! How are you?

Here she is. How are you doing?

I'm doing well, and you?

Oh, it's so nice to see you.

Come on in.

The weather might not be too inviting, but Sarah's studio at the end of her

garden with its views of open countryside certainly is.

Can you believe it's been three and a half years?

Oh, I can't. It feels like it's just gone in the blink of an eye. You know

I cannot think of a better place for somebody that loves nature to work. I

standing here looking out at that view, it must be amazing.

It really is. And all the birds singing.

Surrounded by nature. I am. It's amazing.

Yeah. I'm in my happiest place.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah's studio is a fabulous place to work. It's where she does her sculpting.

But she has another workshop in her converted garage where she does her

and kiln firing.

This is the place where I've got the kiln going.

It's all the bigger kilns now. Not just the kiln, kilns.

Things are getting serious.

Things have got very serious. This would be huge.

Has that opened up sort of avenues for making...

bigger sculptures well i started making some bigger sculptures but i found that

they didn't sell as well as the little ones um so i've actually started doing

bigger batches of the small ones okay and filling the kiln and doing it that

instead that must help cost because you're able to get each time you're

this thing up you can actually get more in there well it's more environmentally

friendly as well because i don't really want to be running a kiln on half

because i want to make sure that everything i do has as little impact on

environment as i can And having the bigger kiln and feeling it making more

of the space makes complete sense.

Absolutely. They're so well and good making so many things, but, I mean, are

they selling? They are. So I've been really enjoying myself. They're going

everywhere, up and down the country. They're going to America and Australia.

All over the world. Yeah, so international.

Critters International.

It's great to hear that Sarah's joyful birds are selling so well, and expanding

the range is a brilliant idea.

She's also broadened out the materials she's working with and now makes bronze

sculptures as well.

With make times of several months, including sculpting, casting and

the large pieces are priced at £3 ,000 to £4 ,000 and they're also bringing in

international sales.

One of my big hairs, she's gone to live in America and I've just sold a set of

three puffins.

Where are all these sales coming from?

I've actually managed to build up a...

A collection of people that like to hear from me. A subscriber list, I suppose

you could call it. Like a mailing list? Yeah, like a mailing list. OK. Got

nearly about 3 ,000 people on that list. And I've actually had the best month to

date. I took £20 ,000.

What, in one month? In one month. It was brilliant. That is a huge number.

By any standard, selling £20 ,000 worth of pieces in just one month is a massive

success.

From her small ceramic sculptures to the big bronze works, Sarah's business is

firing on all cylinders, and she's going to show me how she makes one of the

bronze puffins she sold recently.

Step one is to make a clay puffin that will be used to create a wax model the

piece will be cast from.

We start by rolling out sausages.

What kind of sausage are we going for? Is it a chipolata or a hot dog? I think

it's probably more like a Cumberland by the time we're done because we're going

to swirl it.

Okay, I've got my sausage. What we want to do is form a circle and join the two

ends together and that forms the base.

And then we're going to take your sausage and layer it on top. Okay, you

it? Okay, looking good.

That's it.

Weld those two together. That's the one.

Just like the bird's head sculpture Sarah created at the boot camp, we build

the top half of our puffin one layer at a time.

I'm getting the hang of this now.

It's stringy sausage.

And when she thinks the piece is sturdy enough, it's time for me to get hands

on. If you imagine the shoulders of the puffin are coming in and then he'll have

a little neck and then his head.

Oh, oh, I think I'm a bit heavy handed for this.

There you go. What do you reckon?

That looks good to me.

After creating the basic shape of the top half of the puffin, it needs to dry

before we can go any further.

So Sarah's prepared another, along with a bottom half and feet that are ready

for us to assemble.

So we're going to crosshatch.

It creates a surface for them to stick together.

It's like sanding it down, keeping a rough surface for a key. Rough surface,

that's it.

Right.

Swap over. Give it a couple of squirts.

That's it. And then I'll do the side as well.

Just going to put Dom was here on the inside.

Yep, there you go. Love it.

That's it. So the tail at the back.

There we go.

Hold on to that.

I've got his tail, yep.

You've got his tail. Just squash him together.

To secure the two halves of the puffin together, we use another clay sausage.

And then... And then smoosh it.

Another technical term. Gently, gently.

That's it.

Nicely done.

With the body of the puffin complete, Sarah adds the feet.

It's a good start to a puffin. It certainly is. Definitely puffin -shaped,

it? Yeah.

After adding the wings and finer details, the puffin is sent to a bronze

company in Lancashire.

There, they separate the wings from the bird's body to make it easier to make

silicon moulds, which they then pour wax into, and after leaving everything to

harden, join the pieces back together.

The wax puffin is then given a ceramic coating before being placed in a furnace

where the wax melts, creating a hollow ceramic mould.

Hot liquid bronze is then poured into the mould, and when it's set, the bronze

is freed from its casing, tidied up and sent back to Sarah.

Who uses a chemical called ferric nitrate and a blowtorch to create a dark

reddish -brown patina on the piece?

Can you see it's starting to get darker?

Nice. There it goes, look.

There it goes, yeah.

Get in there. Yeah, that's brilliant.

To finish the puffing, Sarah sands it and waxes it to give it a lovely shine.

Well, thank you for introducing me to a new technique.

Good fun. You'll be going home and trying that. I will be, yeah.

With a make time of around a week plus a three -month casting process, Sarah

sells her large bronze puffins for £2 ,950.

It's fantastic to see that she's scaled up her work as Derek suggested.

And I want to know if any of the other tips we gave her three and a half years

ago have contributed to her success.

When you left the boot camp, we gave you an action plan to try and help you to

build your business.

One of the things was having a look at moulds to try and speed up your work and

hope to make things more efficient.

Did you try? I did try them, but when they came out of the moulds, they just

felt really fragile and quite lightweight.

So that's why I've stuck with the hand -making.

Yeah, I feel like you're so attached and so you've got such a personal

connection to your work.

By making one from a mould, you...

I guess you've lost a bit of that connection. At least now you know.

tried. It's not for you. Move on to the next thing. Exactly.

Another thing was to work on your pricing.

Firstly, pricing your work to sell and then trying to work on increasing it.

With all of that in mind, have you come to a new price for these little

characters now? I have, yes.

They're roughly about the £70 mark now.

Are they selling well?

They are, yes. They are? Yes. So it sounds like you've found that sweet

Yes. At the boot camp, Sarah's small birds were 20 to 40 pounds, but they're

more refined, and with material and workshop costs of 24 pounds each, she's

raised their price.

She's also spent that time developing and expanding her product range and

investing in equipment like her kilns. And it's time to find out what impact

it's all had on her bank balance.

Come on then, let's talk figures if you don't mind.

How's this year's accounts looking so far?

There's been a lot of investment involved, but I've paid myself £20 ,000

year.

£20 ,000?

Yeah. And that is purely paying you, taking all of the costs and everything

out, that pure profit?

Yep. So that pays my bills and puts food on the table and means I can go on a

holiday. I am so pleased. It's something that I always wanted as a kid, and now

I'm doing it. I am living the dream.

And you know what? It is thanks to the hard work that you've put in.

Clearly very talented, but you've really worked for it. Thank you. Well done.

Come here.

Well done. Thank you.

Starting a new career from scratch is a daunting prospect.

But thanks to a lot of hard work, Sarah now has a successful and rapidly growing

business. When I look back...

But how I first started to what I've been doing, sometimes I have to, like,

pinch myself because it's like, did I really do that?

It's been hard work, but it's also been a lot of fun.

The second maker we're catching up with today is Emmy from Devon.

In the spring of 2022, she'd recently returned to glassblowing after taking

off to focus on being a mum.

I used to think of myself as more of an artist in glass, whereas I'd like to

build the skill to be a maker as well as an artist. To combine the two, I could

really do with some guidance on where my target audience is and what I'm making.

To help Emmy kick -start her business, I teamed her up with professional

glassblower Alistair Malcolm.

Based in the National Glassblowing Museum in Stourbridge in the West

Alistair sells his pieces in galleries and museums in the UK, Europe and

America.

I really think I can help Emmy. She comes across a little bit timid and not

confident. We need to kind of inject a bit of more confidence so that she can,

you know, stand there proud with her shoulders back and just say, here I am.

Like Sarah, I set Emmy free tasks. And for her volume piece, she chose to make

glass pit.

It was something she created in the hot shop and once cooled, cut the top off

with a diamond saw and then polished to create a beautiful ornament, which she

planned to sell for £60.

I'm picking up a little bit of rod colour, which is cobalt blue, and I'm

to go quickly into the furnace to warm it in.

So I want to melt that. So yeah, that's getting nice and molten now.

With Alistair's guidance, Emmy was hoping to launch her own business.

But it wasn't going to be easy after only recently returning to the craft she

loved following an eight -year break.

I had two little girls, Lily and Daisy, really close together, which was a

marvellous plan.

But unfortunately, Daisy got really poorly really quickly and she was

with a mitochondrial disease.

which was a deteriorative disease.

And I had to become a main carer. She became really medically complex.

And in 2019, Daisy passed away.

And, yeah, so then I've been slowly, as a family, we've been building our

life together.

It was so important to get back into glassblowing.

To do something for myself, to be able to build a work life again.

I'm going to use the marver just to point it up a little bit. I'm going to

that nice and warm and then I'm going to blow it and thumb it so I get a little

bubble in the middle of it.

I'm going to just let that cool down a little bit before I gather over the top

of it.

Gathering is the process of collecting molten glass from the furnace on top of

the colour on the end of the blowing iron.

Whilst it was hot, Emmy shaped it and then gathered more molten glass to build

up her pit.

These are good for the speed challenge because I can make them quite quickly.

And they're neat little things that doesn't take a lot of time to make and

it's got a nice shiny rim.

They're just cute.

With Emmy making good progress with her glass pit, I sat down with Alistair to

talk about her high -end item.

She brought along a piece she called Copo, or Knit One, Purl One.

Decorated with a knitted design, which she sandblasted off to leave a delicate

white enamel pattern, it was priced at £225.

It wasn't cheap, but with a three hour plus make time, along with the material

and energy costs involved, I was concerned that Emmy wasn't going to be

make any money from it.

If we're going to make a success of this, we really want to make sure that

got the prices right because, you know, if she's looking at 225 in a gallery and

then they're going to take a cut, then it's... Not even going to cover her

And at the end of the day, we're trying to set Emmy up to have a successful

business. Absolutely. And she needs to price her work accordingly.

Yeah, yeah.

Back in the hot shop, Emmy's glass pip was quickly taking shape.

Blending the bottom out a little bit more than I would usually, so a little

A little bit thinner. But that's just my critical eye.

It's always tricky in a new studio, though. You know, things are a little

out of place and temperatures look different, particularly outdoors.

If you're looking at producing these in volume, what sort of palette of colours

do you like to go for? I can see you're not afraid of colour.

Yes. So I love a good rainbow.

One from each kind of turn of the colour wheel, should we say.

I like having a combination of two different tones of blue, pink, yellow.

Red, green.

Yeah, yeah. Just paper in the bottom to cool the bottom so it doesn't blow out

too much on the bottom end.

And I'm going to neck it in to create a weak point where I can break it off

from.

Using the jack.

I'm going to pull out the point.

I'm going to use my tweezers to create the shape of the pin.

After being cooled in a special annealing oven, Emmy's pips were cut

diamond saw and then polished.

Each one took her around 50 minutes to make and had a price tag of £60.

Emmy, these look absolutely beautiful. I love that you've brought down some

other examples of different potential colours. What do you think, Alistair?

Well, what a brilliant approach to a volume challenge, really. It's perfect.

It's perfect. She's proven that she can produce numerous.

in the same style.

There's a very minute variation in shape size, but that's the beauty of a

handmade object.

And they're perfectly within, you know, everybody's tolerance levels. You could

easily market this as a set.

You know, it's perfect.

Yeah. How about the price point? It's a good price. In terms of protecting you

for the future, it may be that we need to look at those costings and make sure

that we future -proof them a little bit. Get them out there. Get them in

galleries, shops.

I think they'd sell really well.

Thank you.

Both Alistair and I were impressed with Emmy's first two items, and for her

third challenge, her favourite piece, she made what she called her Del Mar, or

off -the -sea creation.

Inspired by her coastal home in Plymouth, it featured knitted copper

representing fishing nets encased between two layers of glass, which were

cooled, cut and polished and priced at £150.

How long does it take you to actually knit the object you're going to pick up?

Half an hour? It's a lovely thing in itself.

So you have to squeeze it on there so the glass sort of bites into the

Yeah.

There must have been a lot of trial and error with this to begin with. So what

can go wrong?

Large trapped bubbles, the big pockets are there in the glass, where they're

quite adhered to the...

to the glass. It's actually melting slightly fast. Just waiting now.

Just waiting for it to cool down.

I don't want to gather over it while it's too hot. It's unstable.

Once it had cooled, Emmy gathered her second layer of molten glass and encased

the knitted copper wire mesh.

After being cut and polished, Emmy's Del Mar piece had a price tag of £150.

I love it. It's certainly a desirable object.

I think really we could do with some exquisite photos.

so that we can kind of then start to showcase what we're doing online.

What about the price point? I think the price could be a little bit higher,

particularly if we're going to be retailing these through a gallery. If

take a cut, we've got to think about how much is left over and whether that's...

something we need to think about increasing the price on them as a

Is that where you think Emmy has the best chance of selling?

You can run around trying to do a lot of retail shows and try and sell direct.

We can attempt to try and set up an online store and retail that way.

But either one of those routes will keep you extremely busy, and so it may be a

good opportunity to sort of delegate some of the retail to galleries.

Yeah, I completely agree.

It's going to free up a little bit of time to spend time with your family.

And get in the workshop.

Absolutely, yeah. Because that's the love, isn't it? That's why you do this.

Absolutely, yeah.

We can maybe look at boxes with branding so that the whole marketing looks like

it's a very special package.

You know, I've got ambitions that we're going to be aiming for some very high

-end retailers for you, you know, so that you really do shine.

After an eight -year break from glassblowing, Emmy excelled in every

she was given.

and it was time for her to build a business from her work.

To help her do that, we gave her an action plan to take back to Devon.

First, she needed to get some top -notch photos taken to show off her work.

Next, we wanted Emmy to get some luxury packaging for her pieces.

Finally, she needed to find some galleries to sell her work in.

For the next two months, Alistair continued to support Emmy as she worked

advice we'd given her.

Starting with sorting out her packaging.

So I just started doing a video and the doorbell rang.

And my boxes arrived!

This is my recycled tissue paper.

This is pink.

And these are my boxes that I'm going to be wrapping my pics and my Del Mar in.

I got beautiful black.

sturdy gift boxes that are going to have the pink tissue paper inside.

And then I have some logo -branded stickers so you know who it's from.

Having sorted her packaging, Emmy found some galleries to stock her work. She

also took her pieces to a makers' fair, which helped her make a decision about

the shape of her business.

Alistair was right.

It was really hard to find balance with my girls.

and my husband to be away for that amount of time on a regular basis.

It doesn't make sense when I could be putting my work in a gallery where it

well and those people can do that for me so that I'm not spending lots of time

away from home.

In the eight weeks after boot camp, Emmy threw herself into building the

foundations of her business. And when she came back to give us an update...

had encouraging news.

I've sold £1 ,255 worth of my work.

Really? Really.

You should feel really confident about making some more approaches to getting

more galleries, you know, and I can see, for instance, you get yourself in

another ten galleries and all of a sudden you're reporting to Domini,

made £10 ,000 of sales, you know, because you're more than capable.

I love Alistair's optimism and he was spot on about Emmy.

Even after deducting her costs, she'd proven she had what it took to build a

money -making business.

Fast forward three and a half years, and I've asked Alistair to visit her on a

farm on a slightly grey and drizzly day in the Dartmoor National Park in Devon

to find out what she's up to now and how much she's making.

Hi. Hello, lovely to see you again.

Come on in.

This place isn't her usual workshop. It's the home of a pioneering community

project aiming to reuse waste glass by combining cutting -edge technology with

traditional methods.

So tell me about this.

Ian Hankey, master glassmaker locally, is retiring and he's given me this

sustainable glass studio to manage.

Wow. Wow. I mean, I follow Ian, and so I know this is groundbreaking stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's groundbreaking research into melting down waste glass to make it a

product. At the moment, it's running on propane, and I'm working in association

with the farmer, Andy, to transfer over to methane gas produced by the cows on

the local farm. Wow. So the ultimate goal is to produce carbon -neutral

Yes.

Taking over this established business will provide Amy with an extra income

stream, but I want to know how she's getting on with her own work.

How's your existing business going since boot camp?

It's going really well. It's grown ridiculously.

We've got some nice repeat customers that keep coming back, which is lovely.

It's a real compliment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I've got a touring gallery that's done fantastic

me. It's taken my work internationally.

It's taken my work to Singapore, Texas, New York, where I had a sellout show.

Of all the pieces that you produce, which are the best sellers?

So I think my Pips and my Del Mar are the best sellers.

You've made them in the hundreds now, do you think? I think so. Wow, okay.

It's fantastic to hear that Emmy's Pips and Del Mar pieces are selling well and

driving her business forward.

Since I last saw her, she's raised the prices of her Del Mar pieces from £150

£160 plus, depending on size.

And her glass pips from £60 to £80.

She's also developed a new product.

Over this year, I've done a lot of side quests that have led to new ideas, which

have been fantastic. I did fisherman knitting with a project of the local

museum. And I've started knitting sea creatures and encasing them in the

And I'm in the same methods as I've used my Del Mar, but just light development.

Wow.

Emmy sells her new knitted sea creatures for £280 and back at her regular hot

shop half an hour away, she's going to show Alistair how she makes one.

Having collected clear glass on a blowing iron, she starts building up the

colour.

I've just put a little bit of shard colour on there and I'm having to use

marver just to smooth it back in, so I've heated it in in the reheating

and I'm just...

Moving that colour back in.

And getting it to a nice shape because in a moment I'm going to put some trails

on it which will look a bit like seaweeds.

Emmy's friend and assistant Holly drizzles on trails of colour.

Yeah, go on. If we're quick enough.

It's so nice watching other people work.

Next, she puts the piece back into the reheating chamber, then repeats the

process and rolls it over her knitted copper octopus to incorporate it into

glass.

Just making sure that all that is stuck on there properly.

Yeah, because we want it to adhere to it.

And I want to kind of even it up a little bit because it does end up

As long as I haven't got any massive indents, I shouldn't get any massive

bubbles.

I've just got to let that cool down a little bit before I gather over the top

them.

I think he's good to go.

After collecting more molten glass from the furnace over the top of her knitted

octopus, Emmy shapes the piece again and then blows it to make it bigger.

Right, now that moves.

It's at this point that this process gets really tricky because the colours

all pulling in different directions while the copper's absorbing the heat at

different rates.

So it's quite tricky to then get a nice round object. And as I blow it further

into the piece, the copper distorts the bubble as well.

So I have to go gently to start off with because I don't want to blow too hard

into the end before I'm ready.

To get her piece to the right shape and size, Emmy continually reheats, shapes

and blows it. I see your octopus in there now.

Can you see him?

He looks quite well -faced, actually.

It's not too bad.

It does stretch out with the glass, but I don't want to blow it out so far that

it distorts too much because I don't want the wire to start to pull apart.

Once Emmy's happy with the finish, she cracks the neck off with the help of a

diamond saw and heats the end so she can mould and smooth

it into a rounded rim.

There you go.

Yeah, I love it.

I love the fact that you've pushed your glassmaking skills as well as developing

a new concept, so it seems like the right way forward.

To finish, Emmy knocks the piece off the rod and leaves it to cool in an

annealing oven for a few days before polishing it.

With material and hot shop costs of just under £135 and a make time of around

four hours, the knitted sea creature is priced at £280.

It's clear Emmy has come a long way since we last saw her. And in addition

sorting out her packaging, I'm keen to know what role the advice we gave her

three and a half years ago has played in that.

Emmy, when you came to boot camp, we gave you an action plan. One of the

we asked you to do was to get some professional photographs done, and I

did that, but did you find that useful?

I think they were fundamental, really, to my success, and I think having

those... Photos on my website really made a difference to my marketing.

Another thing we wanted you to do was to contact some galleries and retailers so

that they could represent you, allowing you to get on with the creative stuff

and free up your time. Did that work out OK as well?

Yeah, it went really well, actually.

You know, it's fantastic having those galleries representing you because

who wouldn't necessarily see your work go to those galleries.

It's fantastic to have that money coming in on a regular basis.

Emmy couldn't have worked any harder over the past three and a half years

building her business and taking on a second one.

But what does it all mean for her bottom line?

I know we were aiming to turn a passion into a sustainable business, but are you

actually making enough money to survive as a glass artist?

So I'm definitely able to make a living. I earn about £25 ,000 a year.

I know that this process had the ability to give you a leg up and you just

needed that.

uh that help so to hear that this process has elevated you to the point

you're selling at that level it's just magic to my ears prior to boot camp i

selling in a few places and glass was just about paying for glass and the boot

camp made the world a difference to to my business Every maker dreams of being

able to sell their work, but to make an income of £25 ,000 a year after cost is

life -changing.

And with a new second business on top, things are only going to get bigger and

better for Emmy.

The past three and a half years have been wonderfully overwhelming and just

beyond what I thought I could achieve. Now I have an established business and

I'm making money doing something that I love and want to continue doing forever.

When they came to my boot camp, both Emmy and Sarah weren't selling their

pieces. Thanks to a few key suggestions and an awful lot of hard work, they've

now got brilliant growing businesses and very bright futures indeed.

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exploring new insights into how makers have sustained and grown their

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