Necklaces
More Jewellery
About the Unexpected Boutique
The Unexpected Boutique is run by me, Helen Bell, and I design and make the majority of the products myself.
I set up my online shop in late 2008, when I'd made a few pieces of jewellery from unusual materials. I'd made a lot of basic button jewellery in the past, which has its own separate site elsewhere, but was beginning to branch out into experimenting with jigsaw pieces, safety pins and other materials. The pieces were also starting to become more detailed and intricate, and less likely to fit in with the bold, simple jewellery on my other site.
I put a very basic site up and caught quite a bit of Christmas custom that year - but it wasn't until July 2009 that I had time to build a proper website.
Since then I've been making bits and pieces of quirky jewellery, all from my home-workshop in York, UK. Some of the jewellery has developed into mini-collections when customers have asked for a matching bracelet to go with an existing necklace, earrings to match something else, or something in a different colour to something I'd already made. The development of the jewellery has been half my own inspiration, and half driven by customer requests.
Most of the jewellery here is made by me, but there are also a few pieces by my sister, Nicolar.
Hope you enjoy browsing the site.
Helen
Designer, the Unexpected Boutique