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 proudest moment. I'll go share that. Yes. Now, I'm on my way to

catch up with those who have made their dreams come true. 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.

And finding out how much money they're making.

A little bit under £40 ,000.

Around £50 ,000. £50 ,000?

Yes. So join me and meet the fabulous makers who have transformed their lives

and made it at market.

You can kind of say I'm living the dream.

I think that's fair to say.

Lots of makers come to my boot camp looking for help, swapping the 9 -to -5

a full -time career doing the thing they love.

And today we'll be catching up with two makers who have succeeded in doing that.

Later, mentor Derek will be dropping in on Charlotte, who gave up a job in a vet

to build a stained glass art business.

I'm working a lot more for starters, but I'm definitely enjoying it a lot more.

Before that... I'll be catching up with stone carver Louise in Oxfordshire.

I first met her in the summer of 2023, when she was a novice but passionate

carver. There is a sense of permanence with stone that you know that whatever

you're carving is going to survive for thousands of years. It's brilliant.

Louise had ditched her day job and gone to college to learn how to carve stone

and was hoping we could help her build a business from it.

I have put my life on hold and retrained the last two years.

And, you know, I don't want to be a failure at the end of it. I want to come

of this and be successful.

To help Louise start making money from her passion, I set her three tasks to

figure out how best to bring in sales.

First up was making a volume piece, something quick to make and affordably

priced.

She decided to craft a decorative swallow carved into a 10cm square

block, which she hoped to sell for £100.

I'm just putting in a really shallow re -cut around the shape of the swallow.

the v -cut is just i'm just protecting the bits of stone that i don't want to

chip off really if i hit it too hard

and i take off a bit that i don't want

to then i just basically have to rethink the design

and this is ancaster stone the lovely thing about ancaster is that

it's quite pure so you don't have that many

fossils in.

Fossils can be a real pain because if you come across a fossil, you've either

got to go round it or chip the whole thing out.

I'm just doing the tail now.

So I've nearly got the rough shape of the swallow in the V carving.

To help Louise build her business, I teamed her up with professional stone

carver, Louis Francis.

Louis is a classically trained carver who's been running his own successful

business for 13 years.

Hello, you all right?

How are you?

How do you find carving with that frame?

I'm kind of used to it. It's what I use for the really small carving.

I suggest like a washing up bowl with sand filled to the top.

and then you place the stone inside the sand, and because it's quite small, it's

much easier to carve inside that framework because it won't move around.

The frame seems a little bit clumsy, so you might struggle to get the full

dexterity. Oh, that's a really good idea. Thank you.

Whilst Louise cracked on with her volume piece, I caught up with Louis to

discuss her second challenge.

Before she left home, I asked her to bring along a high -end item.

something with a more expensive price tag.

Louise chose to bring Cyril the Owl.

Packed full of character, he stood 70 centimetres tall and was made from

beautiful York stone.

When I saw the owl sculpture, I just was blown away because it's so beautiful. I

love animals myself.

I love them.

So it's a really modern touch.

It's a really nice piece.

Would you say it's worth the £700 asking price?

I would say maybe $500 to $700 in that area, but I think $700 is OK price

Back in the stone carving yard, having marked out her swallow for her volume

piece, Louise started to carve away the limestone around it to reveal the bird's

outline.

There we are.

After chiselling away the bulk of the stone, she began to form the shape of

swallow.

Unfortunately... I chopped a wing off.

I am just basically looking at the shape again and seeing how I can work around

it. You can rectify these things.

Just a case of slowing down, looking at it and thinking, right, how can

I get around that problem?

Louise's attitude was spot on.

Handmade items often have minor imperfections in them, but it's all part

their charm.

Once the swallow was reshaped, she used a gouge and a simple battery -powered

nail file to add the finer details of the wings.

I'm just basically making sure I'm happy with the feathers, really, and it just

gives a little bit more detail.

And it's such a fine...

And there's hardly any resistance on it at all.

It's, yeah, it's brilliant.

Despite the setback with the wing, Louise's limestone swallow was charming.

It took her around four hours to make and was priced at £100.

I think it looks good. It's a great size, carving in quite a small area as

I think people can buy it and then just put it on a shelf in their home. It will

look great.

What do you think of the price point, Louis?

The £100 price point is good.

One tip, maybe add like a gold leaf, an embellishment, just something on the

beak, maybe something quite small, or maybe a few extra gold leaf details on

wings, and that's it, quite simple.

Two challenges in, and Louise had a well -deserved thumbs up for her first two

pieces.

For her final task, I asked her to produce her favourite item, to see if

piece she most enjoyed making could bring in big sales.

She chose to create her take on a traditional Lewis chessman.

Standing 20 centimetres high, her bishop was carved from Ancaster limestone.

I'm just going across, which is basically the shoulder of the bishop.

There we are. Don't go too far, though, because if I carry on, I'm going to risk

losing bits that I don't want to lose. So I'm going to turn it around and just

go the other way.

As work was progressing well, Louis was keen to talk to Louise about how she

promoted and marketed herself and her work online.

I've seen your Instagram page, been looking through it, and I haven't seen,

like, a video or... Is that something you'd think about creating? I've watched

those videos and they are so cool, but I don't actually understand how to do

them.

It's really, really simple.

Set up a tripod.

Film yourself doing it and then share it online. That's pretty much it. And then

you'll draw in more people rather than through photos because a lot of people

see photos and then they kind of scroll past it. Whereas the video, you can see

someone's process and it's much more engaging to watch.

I just find it just so daunting.

I think it's a really important aspect of the business to just have that social

media platform and a website as well.

Louise's Louis chessman had a make time of around 20 hours to complete.

So in order to show me and Louis a finished piece, she brought one closer

completion to carve out the details of her bishop.

Starting to look like a human and his face is starting to take shape as well.

And we've got two hands here and then the crook going down.

As Louise continued to carve in the character of her bishop, she made an

important decision.

I think he's chosen his own name and he's Cuthbert and Cuthbert was the

bishop of Linderswan in 600 and something.

So yeah, he's called Cuthbert.

And there he is.

Cuthbert took Louise 20 hours to carve and was packed full of personality.

With material costs of around £35, she gave him an asking price of £300.

I think it's a really lovely carving piece.

You've got good size there as well. The detail is amazing.

For your first sale, if you put £300, if people go, ooh, it's a bit steep, it's

a bit expensive, and are a bit more hesitant towards it, you might be able

drop it just slightly for your first sale.

It was a joy to share Louise's love of stone carving, and as she headed home,

Louis gave her an action plan to turn her passion into a sustainable business.

First, he wanted her to think about adding gold and silver details to her

design. to add value and boost her profits.

Next, he wanted her to focus much more on her marketing and promote herself and

her work by posting regular videos on social media.

Finally, Louise needed to finish her website so that people could find her

buy her pieces.

With Louise's continued guidance, we gave Louise two months to work on her

action plan and get the sales coming in.

She started by adding colour to her characterful chessmen.

I bought some proper stone masonry gold paint, sort of thing that they use for

lettering and things. So it lasts an awful long time and it weathers very,

well. The case with this is just put a little bit on at a time because it tends

to blob and it goes everywhere.

She also began to build her online presence and had some good news about

her work.

I'm now in a gallery in Tetbury, which is brilliant.

The gallery in Chipping Camden has asked if they could have my stone.

So that's starting up in October, which is brilliant.

With Louise's support, Louise knuckled down to building her business. And after

eight weeks of hard graft, she reported back to us at the boot camp.

Let's talk about money.

How much have you made?

I've taken about £600, so not great, but I'm... Not

great, that's OK.

And starting from scratch again, building your business, building your

setting up a website, doing your social media.

I mean, you've been doing so much stuff, all of the steps are there, and later

you'll start to reap the benefits of all that hard work.

Louis was bang on.

Louise did have to deduct her costs from her £600 worth of sales, but she'd

spent time laying solid foundations and put herself in the perfect position to

start earning money from her work.

Two and a half years later, I've come to Oxfordshire to see how she's getting on

and how much money she's making now.

And by the looks of this new workshop, she's not doing badly.

Hello? Hello.

Louise, hello. How are you doing? I'm very good. How are you, importantly?

I'm fine, thank you. Here, come in. Thank you.

This huge space is the perfect setup for a messy craft.

And as a maker myself, it's making me rather jealous.

Wow. It's great, isn't it? What a brilliant space.

Yeah. It's absolutely cracking.

Last time you were at boot camp, you were just finishing your training.

Clearly. A lot has changed in the last two years. Yeah, I was still at college,

so I was working on pieces at college.

I set up a workbench in my garden, which wasn't ideal.

I was using a stable quite close to where I live.

Again, that wasn't ideal.

But then I got a very large commission.

Oh, did you?

Yes. It was a swan for a stately home. What an amazing project.

800 kilos of Portland, so it was a huge block over a metre high.

Wow. So I needed somewhere big enough.

Yeah, you're never going to get an 800 kilo stone into your back garden.

No, exactly.

So what did you do? Just found this place.

Yeah. That's the sort of thing I would do.

Confirm the order for something that you have no space for and no idea where

you're going to do it.

Louise's swan commission was worth a fantastic £6 ,000.

But it's not her only big sale.

She's also sold Cyril the Owl for an incredible £1 ,800, more than double

she was hoping to get for it when she brought it to my boot camp as her high

-end piece.

Come on then, Louise, let's get down to business.

How has it been going for the last two years?

It's been going great.

Has it? Yeah, I mean, I'm full -time.

Is that not incredible?

It is, actually. It's really good.

Yeah. I sell in galleries.

I do a few summer events and obviously Christmassy ones and all sorts. OK. My

chess band, I think I've got up to 27 commissions on those now. 27?

Yeah. Yeah.

The Lewis chess band that Louise made for her volume piece had material costs

around £35.

And with the added silver and gold detail on some, as Louise suggested...

They now sell for between £425 and £475 each.

Louise is doing brilliantly, but selling her stone carvings isn't the only

string to her bow.

I do courses as well, and the courses are going great.

I'm in four locations in about five different counties, and I've now got to

point where I'm offering advanced courses for the people who've already

my courses, and they sell out.

Congratulations. Is that not the biggest compliment, that somebody's been on a

course... and wants to come back and learn more from you. It's so rewarding,

really is. I've got to ask, it's not all stone in here, is it? No.

I didn't know that you even painted.

I've done eight commissions this year so far, which is astounding.

That's really good. Yeah, ranging from about 350 for a small piece up to 750.

That's various money.

Yeah, it's great. And obviously I sell prints as well.

My income is basically split in thirds.

So it's a third stone commission, a third paintings and a third courses.

What a perfect mix.

Yeah, it is.

Louise charges £195 for a two -day course. And as they now form such a big

of her business, I'm going to take a taster class.

We're going to carve a raised, curled -up fox.

And after tracing the design onto offcuts from Louise's larger

We use a scribe to mark out a clear line to chisel to.

This puts a fire break in.

So it's telling the stone that you don't want to chisel past these lines.

It's because the stone listens to you.

Yeah, you know. I can tell it all I want.

How hard am I pushing?

Very hard, actually.

With the outline of the design marked up...

Our next job is to scribe a one centimetre line around the edge of the

we can see how deep to take the background.

Right, time for the PPE.

It's getting serious now, isn't it? Mm -hmm.

Now we'll chisel a channel around the outside edge of the design to create a

weakness in the stone.

Start off in the chisel.

45 degrees.

45 degrees. On the line or outside the line?

Just a little bit outside.

How's that?

Mm -hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Take a little bit more so the pencil line doesn't disappear.

Okay. You've got a nice sharp edge there.

It all seems hard to be touched down.

It's so hard.

You have to touch it. I know.

The next stage is to chisel inwards from our 1cm depth line, and the weakness

created by the channel causes the stone around the outside of the design to

break away, creating a dropped background and a raised fox.

We might want to stand up to this, actually.

OK,

I'll have to chisel up to that line, this side line, OK?

And give it a tap.

Oh, my word.

I'm sorry.

Don't worry.

I will just chisel this bit out here.

Just a little bit.

That's it.

My chisel -happy hands might have let me down, but with a little help from

Louise, my fox is rescued.

As she's condensing a two -day course into a few hours for me, though, she's

prepared one a little further along.

so that I can chisel on the details to the fox's face and body.

Where is it going to come to life?

Yeah, hand it back in the corner of the eye. Yeah.

And chisel in.

This has to be very, very, very shallow. Deeper there. A little bit deeper here.

And it's only a very shallow chisel.

You know what, you're a very good teacher.

Thank you. You're very calm. Thank you. You give me a lot of confidence.

Under Louise's watchful eye.

We carve the details into our boxes.

How's that?

Brilliant.

Right,

guys, I think that's about it for today.

So we've got on really well. Some really lovely stuff going on here. That's been

really good fun.

Thank you. Really good.

I'm quite chuffed, actually.

It's really good. It's lovely.

I'm thrilled with my fox, and after a little sanding, it will take pride of

place in my workshop.

Louise promotes these fantastic courses on social media, using reels like we

asked her to do at the boot camp.

And I'm keen to find out if any of the other advice we gave her has been useful

in building her business.

When you left my boot camp, we did send you off with an action plan, some key

pointers to try and help you build it into a business.

One of the pointers was to introduce more gold to your work. How have you

that? Just adding a little bit is great. I mean, lettering, for example.

Perfect. Yeah, exactly.

Something else that we were really keen for you to work on was your website,

which I know is not easy.

It's up and running. It's been up and running for, well, over two years now.

I add to it as well. So if I've got like a new project or I think I've got to

promote something, I will then add another page to it. So it's all ever

I can't even manage that.

You're doing better than me.

Louise has really taken all of our advice and run with it. She's

business and two and a half years after I first met her, I can't wait to hear

just how well she's doing in her new career.

I know you're having great fun carving and sculpting, but how much money are

making? Last financial year, my income was £21 ,000.

From this. The courses, commissions, and the art.

And I'm on track to do about the same this year, if not a bit more. What an

achievement. You can kind of say I'm living the dream.

I think that's fair to say.

Sure, I think that's fair to say.

Importantly, you're living your dream. This is now your reality.

Giving up her full -time income was a brave decision.

But as Louise is now taking home £21 ,000 a year off the cost, it was

the right one.

You shouldn't be driven by money, but when what your own hands create, make

sure that the bills are paid.

It's actually quite an important thing.

I'm making an income out of something that I am absolutely passionate about.

So, yeah, win -win.

The second maker we're going to catch up with today is wild swimmer and stained

glass artist Charlotte from Bristol, who also came to my boot camp two and a

half years ago.

I swim in anything, as long as the water's clean.

I swim in the sea, I swim in rivers, I swim throughout the winter.

Colder the better, actually.

Any band of water, I'm there.

Like Louise, Charlotte had also left her job and was trying to make a living

from her swimming -inspired stained glass art.

I was working part -time in events and making pieces and then they built up and

I thought, I'm going to actually have to get rid of some now. So I started

selling them to my swimming friends and then...

I had to take the plunge of going full -time. Take the plunge, I like it. Yeah,

yeah.

Financially, it has to work because I have to pay my way in the house.

You've got your kiln, you've given up the job. Yeah. We'll do everything we

I'm very excited.

To work out the best way of getting some much -needed sales rolling in,

Charlotte faced my three making challenges.

For her volume piece, she decided to make a stained -glass 10 -inch Lido

which she hoped to sell for £55, complete with a three -piece bathing

hook for hanging.

She started by tracing out her lady's limbs.

Her fingertip doesn't quite fit on, but who cares? Some people have small arms.

One of the things about glass is that I've just made a very simple score line

and then you literally just do it.

Like that.

And that's very, very satisfying.

I'm just following the marking that I've done, and then it just snaps.

This is my first cut, and then later on I'll just go to the grinder and I'll

decide what sort of shape I want the leg to be.

Once the limbs were cut, Charlotte chose the coloured glass for the swimsuit and

traced it out before cutting.

Any sort of curve in glass is trickier than a straight line obviously.

I have to cut into here as close as I can and then you just sort of nibble it

away with the pliers like that. This bit will be finished off on the

grinder and then I'll have a nice clean armpit.

You can do this quite roughly and then sort of nibble.

nibble little bits away.

I can already see that the face that I've cut out here isn't going to fit

hat. When I come to grind it, that's when I can really get in tight and make

them fit snugly together.

Having been brave enough to quit her job working in a vet and invest time and

money into her stained glass business, Charlotte needed it to grow to support

her and her family.

To help it do just that, I teamed her up with Derek Hunt.

Derek's been successfully designing and making glass artworks for public spaces,

private homes and churches for over 40 years.

Some clever cutting going on here. Where do you sell this kind of work?

Mainly online, social media, and then I also sell occasionally at do markets. So

I've got quite a big...

travelling trunk that I take and I open it up and it's like, here are my ladies.

Wonderful.

You are a swimmer also, yeah? I'm also a swimmer. I also do synchronised

swimming. This is great. I mean, I think that we can develop this theme into a

collection.

Whilst Charlotte pressed on with her Lido lady, I caught up with Derek to

discuss her second challenge.

For her high -end piece, Charlotte took inspiration from her love of

synchronised swimming.

to create a stunning piece of circular glass art.

Designed to be hung from a window, she painted the glass with her Lido ladies

forming a symmetrical pattern.

With a make time of 40 hours, she gave it a price tag of £450.

There's a lot of detail in there, a lot of very delicate painted work called

scraffito, which is basically scratching out the paint. It was really, really

nice to see. It's very unusual because it's a sort of freestanding piece that's

hung in a window, and she can develop it further with lots of different costumes

and lots of different colours.

Charlotte's hoping to get £450 for that. Do you think it's worth it? There's

quite a lot of work in it, and I think that's a fair price, yeah. And what's

really exciting as well is that she's just recently invested in a kiln, so now

that she can do... painting on glass.

That's something that I really think I can help her with.

Back at the glass station, Charlotte ground the individual parts of her Lido

lady to smooth and add muscle tone.

Checking they fit together as she went.

Now the joints are all nice and flush. They're sitting nicely together, so I'm

happy with that.

I'm going to go around each individual piece, and I use copper foil, which is a

sticky back tape.

and centre the foil so that there's an overlap each side.

It just needs to overlap a little bit so that all the joints can fit together

nicely and you get a nice clean line around the border.

Charlotte's next job was soldering the pieces together, taping the joints on

side whilst she worked on the other.

I'm going to tack solder it on each of the joints.

flip it over take the masking tape off and then i can solder the whole piece

make nice fluid solder lines to keep it all in place

once

she finished soldering okay so she's done i'm happy with her charlotte

and polished up her figure before adding the finishing touches i'm applying the

black patina which is a dye that will dye the solder

Once she's done, I can attach a hook and then she'll be finished.

With material costs of around £12 and a make time of just under an hour,

Charlotte's fabulous Lido lady carried a price tag of £55.

Charlotte, I feel like we're taking a trip back to the 1920s.

You lied, old lady. It's brilliant.

Thank you. Thanks very much.

Derek, what are your thoughts?

What is exciting about this is how we can develop it. I know you do

swimming and you can actually perhaps...

Include that. You can also do multiple figures together. You can have a series

of collectible swimmers, themed Victorian swimmers, contemporary

different costumes.

Men. Yeah, exactly.

That's true.

It's a bit more tricky with a man because there's not so many curves and

not quite as attractive. It's a bit more lumpy. Yeah.

Derek thought Charlotte's first two pieces had lots of potential for

development.

For her third task, we wanted to see if her favourite piece, the item she

cherished making most, could also be a big hit with customers.

She chose to make a memory window.

Framed in an arch, it brought together her Lido Lady style with a twist of

personalised pressed foliage, bespoke to each client.

This photo here is a friend of mine.

and this moment is her walking down into the water and just pausing, and she

almost parted the willow tree to get into the water, and then she was off.

After tracing out the template for each of the glass pieces for her memory

window, Charlotte moved on to choosing the foliage.

Today I'll be using some heather, and there's some grasses here. I really want

to create the drapery of the willow tree.

By personalising the piece to an individual customer.

Charlotte created something special and unique.

But Derek wanted to talk to her about its price.

How do we price it? I really struggle with pricing.

Pricing is that kind of dark art and you've got to get it right. You have to

through how long it's taken to make and the material cost.

Everything above that is the perceived value of it and you have to decide what

that value is over and above the cost.

To finish her memory window, Charlotte positioned foliage between two pieces of

glass.

I think I'm happy with that fitting.

Smoothed off the rough edges with her grinder.

Gave it a quick polish and added copper foil around the edges to secure

everything in place.

I'm going to put the foil tape all the way around the outside and then I can go

ahead and solder it.

Charlotte's memory window was a remarkable piece of work.

It had a make time of two days, plus pressing and prep time, along with a

tag of £250, and got another thumbs up from Derek.

That's fantastic.

I love it because it's a combination of Delido ladies and also this memory

panel. So there's two ideas in one. It's a great piece.

Thank you.

What do you think? The price is £250.

Yeah, I think that's about right. I think keeping it under £300 is great. I

think you're pitching it just about right. Okay, great.

After being brave enough to quit her job, Charlotte needed to make her

work. And as she headed home to Bristol, we gave her an action plan to help her

do just that.

First, she needed to develop her Lido Ladies into a collection with different

swimmers, themes, groups, and men.

Next, Derek wanted Charlotte to improve her glass painting skills.

Finally, she needed to know her worth and up her pricing, calculating her

costs and adding perceived value.

With two more months of Derek's guidance, Charlotte set to work on her

building advice.

starting with exploring painting on glass at his studio in Leicestershire.

We've been playing with different coloured paints.

This is a green and this is a sort of orangey -brown colour.

Usually I've just been playing with the black, so it's really nice to get the

different tones.

This colour combination is lovely. Yeah, yeah, it is, you're right, yeah.

They also worked on her Lido Lady collection.

almost refined the collection which was the one of the most important things for

me to do um and also getting confidence in my painting which i

feel like that's coming along as well so i feel like everything's going in the

right direction

For two months, Charlotte worked hard to move her business forward. And when she

came back to my boot camp to update us on her progress, she had brilliant news.

I've made £2 ,730.

Whoa, amazing.

£2 ,700.

I feel really proud of myself.

Yeah, it's wonderful. I think you should be proud. You really should because

you've achieved so much and your work is beautiful.

Charlotte had to take off her costs from her fabulous sales figure that she'd

made a brilliant start to building a successful business.

Two and a half years after she came to my boot camp, Derek has travelled to

Bristol to find out how she's grown her business since then and how much money

she's making now.

Hi, Derek.

Hi. Lovely to see you. Great to see you too.

Come in.

Fantastic.

Charlotte runs her business from what used to be the dining room in her house.

It's a brilliant workspace Derek has seen on a previous visit, but a lot has

happened since then.

Okay, here we are again.

Wow, fantastic.

It's great to see you again.

Yes, thank you, yeah. I think it's very similar to when you did visit, possibly

a bit tidier.

had a bit of a thought out yeah yeah so i it's very organized now i know where

everything is yeah looking great how's business how's things going for you it's

great really good yeah yeah i'm releasing the lido collection three or

times a year and then i do a couple commissions a month and i get website

as well of the plain lido pieces i've also started experimenting with a

process called fossil vitra i was Initially encasing pressed foliage that

I'd collected or people had sent me in between two sheets of glass.

The problem there was that it could potentially disintegrate over time.

What I've discovered and researched is that I can essentially make a

fossil of the foliage.

So people will send me foliage from where they swim. I'll press them.

I cover them in powdered glass and then I put glass on the top and then fuse

them in the kiln. And that essentially creates a fossil of the piece, which is

there forever.

It's fantastic.

They're kind of almost like heirlooms, family heirlooms, that can be passed

because they've got a legacy to them. Which pieces have been your bestsellers?

The Lido collection is definitely the bestsellers.

And then from the figures from the Lido collection, I then have made some of

them into what I call Lido loops.

They're essentially glass drawings.

There's quite a lot of negative space in them to keep them affordable for people

and affordable for me.

Charlotte's sold around 400 Lido ladies since the boot camp, which then were £55

and are now priced between £75 and £95.

It's great she's also incorporating them into her new pieces like her Lido

loops. These are priced at £175 and she's going to show Derek how they're

I've got my design here and I'm going to lay it down on the light box so that I

can see the image through the selection of glass that I've chosen and I trace

over.

and try and make it as compact as I can on the glass so that I don't waste

any.

After Charlotte's traced around her bathing bell design, she cuts the pieces

out, then grinds the edges to shape and smooth them.

I like the grinding bit because it's the bit that actually makes them all fit

together, so it's quite satisfying.

And I like doing the profiles.

I like them to have a nice, clean, serene profile, I think.

This one needs a little bit more taking off here because I think it looks like

she's got a double chin. But don't we all?

To add personality and colour to the piece, Charlotte is going to paint the

face, hat and strap.

I'm going to mix my paint up. So this is a ground.

glass basically so you've got to be really careful not to ingest it and then

add a tiny little bit of gum arabic to that which will help the paint stick

to the the glass itself looking good how's your painting technique

changed over the last couple of years uh yeah it's definitely got a lot more

sort of experimental and are you experimenting with different types of

well

enamels transparent enamels and opaque and um different stains and i'm also

i started making my own paints as well like i use a red powdered oxide

and i mix it with ground fruit like ground glass this is fantastic yeah

are not many glasses that are actually making their own paint it's pretty cool

now we just need to let this dry for a few minutes

until it forms a nice layer.

Once dry, Charlotte adds the final details and pops the pieces into the

As they need an hour and a half in there for the paint to stick to the glass,

she's prepped a second set to be able to show Derek a finished Lido loop.

Next stage is to foil each piece. So this is a copper foil tape and the

foil overlaps each side.

and gives the little border around each piece.

Flux is painted onto the joint to help the solder stick to the foil. Then

Charlotte solders everything together.

OK, she's done, and then the last bit is just to put on the lead cane, which is

the border that will go around the edge, and it makes it look a bit cleaner.

The £175 bathing bell Lido loop takes around two hours to make.

That's brilliant.

I love that.

It's great to see how Charlotte has expanded her portfolio of pieces.

I'm also delighted that she's refined her glass painting skills.

But have any of the other pointers we gave her at the boot camp helped to

her business over the past two and a half years?

Charlotte, when you were at the boot camp, we gave you a business plan to

develop your themes with the Lido men and Lido ladies.

Have you developed that further?

Yes, so I developed the collection at boot camp and that was five ladies and

two men.

And then since then I have added another couple of figures.

As my skills have developed, they're becoming a lot more of a sort of luxury

item and a lot more intricate, I think.

Something we also wanted to get you to work on was knowing your own value and

getting your prices worked out. Have those prices evolved over time?

Yeah, I definitely think that I know my worth now and I fixed my prices so they

went up. I also feel that maybe they might need another tweak again.

And I think that's only natural because everybody in other professions have pay

increases and I think it's important for me to do that as well. As my skills

develop, I should get a pay rise.

Charlotte's absolutely right.

As well as increasing the price of her Lido Ladies, she also upped the price of

the synchronised swimmer's piece she made for her high -end challenge.

She originally wanted £450 for it, but then sold it at an international art

exhibition for a staggering £1 ,800.

With figures like that, I'm looking forward to hearing what it's meant for

finances.

Charlotte, you came to the boot camp to really kind of develop your business and

to get it off the ground.

The important part, obviously, is, is it working as a business?

So working a lot more, but I'm definitely enjoying it a lot more.

I'm making more money, roughly sort of 24, 25 grand.

It's been amazing and really inspiring for my kids to see as well that it's

possible to make.

A living from doing what you love. Like, everyone wants that, don't they? Yeah,

absolutely. Oh, I love it. I wouldn't change it for the world.

After taking off her costs, Charlotte has made a profit of £18 ,000 over the

past 12 months.

Having only left my boot camp two and a half years ago, it's a fantastic effort

in such a short space of time. Years and years ago when I said I wanted to be an

artist, this is now. I feel like I'm sort of living that dream.

And now I've got the next dream to kind of think about.

And that's really exciting.

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