October is Small Business Month! And to celebrate, we’re highlighting some of the great small businesses we have throughout the region.
Today we have three crafters of wonderful things: a wood turner, an author, and a jeweller.
Wood we Create 🖥️
Wood We Create is a wood turning gallery where the resident artist David Barden designs, creates and sells one off wood turned or carved creative, useable pieces.
Started in 2013 on the Coffs Coast before relocating to Walcha, the gallery specialises in the use of local and Australian timbers to individually create stock or custom-made pieces.
David has taken his interest from childhood, coupled it with precision trade skills, and using his creativity and passion produces high quality timber pieces, that will be enjoyed for generations.
David has been working with wood since the age of 10. Through high school he excelled in his ability in woodwork and upon leaving school, embarked on a career in Engineering Patternmaking. This trade involved making patterns and models with a high degree of accuracy, out of timber. After a number of years in the trade, the calling of creativity became too strong and David turned to woodturning professionally, making pieces creatively from wood with the expertise learnt from his trade.
Wood we Create Gallery, owned and run by David & Fiona Barden, is not only a place where high quality timber giftware can be purchased along with one-off artistic pieces, but is also a place to explore what is involved in woodturning and understand the stories of the locally sourced timber David uses.
“The unique part about us, is everything at Wood We Create is handcrafted using salvaged timber,” David said.
Creativity is a life-long adventure, where David uses inspiration drawn from the beauty of nature to create beautiful fine wood turned homewares, depending on these learnings to perfect elements of design. His passion extends past creativity to a principle of sharing skills and knowledge through lessons, and through capturing a client’s thoughts to create individual pieces.
“You are able to buy a gift for yourself or a friend knowing that the piece is unique to the gallery. If you can’t find what they are after we can often custom make to your desire.”
David Barden Wood we Create Gallery is located at 32W Fitzroy St. Walcha. The gallery is open Monday to Friday between 10am and 3pm, and Saturday between 10am and 1pm, or by appointment.
Bidget Van der Eyk 🖥️
Bridget Van der Eyk is an up-and-coming contemporary romance author. She lives in Rocky River on a 5-acre property with her husband (Josh), 2 children (Zoe and Max), and 2 dogs (Kevin and Stella). When she’s not working a part-time teaching job or binging Korean zombie shows on Netflix, Bridget is busy writing her next novel.
Bridget rediscovered her passion for writing while on maternity leave with her daughter in 2020.
Since then she has written four books. Books 1 (10 Dates) and 2 (3000 Words) in The Hollywood Socialite romance series have been self-published with book 3 (2 Loves Later) due for publication in November 2024.
Bridget’s first holiday rom-com (The Husband Wishlist) is currently being queried for traditional publishing while she works on drafting a new STEM romance (Out of My Element).
Bridget loves writing smart, strong, and sassy female characters that have little parts of herself embedded in them! #girlpower
“Described as ‘Gossip Girl goes Hollywood’, if you like your romance with a side of scandal and gossip then you’ll love my books,” she said.
10 Dates and 3000 Words are currently available at both Readers Companion Armidale and Collins Booksellers Armidale, so purchasing them goes a long way in supporting small and independent bookstores as well.
Regarde Jewellers 🖥️
Regarde Jewellers is an independent jeweller located in Armidale, locally owned and operated by Jermaine Peters and Richard Charlesworth
“We have been open just over a year now, ” Jermaine said.
“We pride ourselves on providing personalised service as we want your jewellery experience to be a great one. Whether you are buying a gift for someone or just treating yourself, we will help you find that special something. “
Regarde Jewellers have a wide range of jewellery to suit all ages and occasions including one of a kind pieces.
“We offer custom design engagement rings, jewellery remodelling and bespoke jewellery design.”
With their custom engagement ring and bespoke jewellery design service, Regarde can provide a computer rendering of your design and now offer a 3D printed try on sample so you can see exactly what your finished piece will look like.
They are an authorised Pandora retailer and also carry brands including Citizen and Daniel Wellington watches, Ikecho Pearls and the Desert Rose Pink Diamond collection.
“We also offer jewellery repairs, watch battery replacement and servicing and pearl rethreading.”
Jermaine has over 10 years experience in the jewellery industry including as an overseas jewellery buyer and bespoke engagement ring designer and came to Armidale for a change from coastal life.
Richard is a member of the Gold and Silversmiths Guild of Australia, specialises in jewellery design and is in charge of jewellery repairs and remodelling.
Both are kept very busy by their tuxedo cat, Diego, who is self-appointed director of human resources but is very partial to cat treats and chin scratchies.
Throughout October, we’ll run stories highlighting the great local businesses we have right here in our communities. This is a free service – the businesses highlighted have not paid for this story.
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