A treasured hobby.

After meeting a number of the designers who will be involved in the first Hustle&Scout market, I have sensed a bit of a pattern emerge - most start making and designing as a hobby, which transforms into a passion, and then becomes a job they can't live without. Penny Layton first started making jewellery as a hobby when she was living in the US. Eight years on and she has her own jewellery label and has been commission by customers from around Australia, the US and the UK. 

All of the pieces that Penny makes are, for lack of better words, rustic treasures. She works mainly with copper, recycled silver and brass which give her pieces are warm, sophisticated charm. Penny's range of rings, pendants, earring, bracelets and cuffs also incorporates rocks, freshwater pearls, and her signature dome beads which are made from sterling silver, brass and copper. Penny has a reciprocal relationship with a company that recycles metals; so when she finishes working on a collection of pieces she sends her scraps back to them to melt down and send on back to her. Penny also recycles her scraps by incorporating them into new designs. For example, Penny sometimes re-uses scraps of woven metal leftover from making her gorgeous woven rings and encases them in new pendants. 

Penny gives me the impression that she is one of those women that loves to keep busy. As well as being a Mum, she works at a bookshop, a gym, and somehow manages to find the time to maintain her jewellery-making. When I visited Penny at her bookshop, she showed me the pieces she was working on behind the front-counter (obviously only during the very quiet periods of the day!). She was wearing one of her own chain-mail necklaces - a simple and elegant piece that would compliment most outfits. My favourite Rustic Treasures pieces are the silver earrings wrapped in copper wire and embellished with the odd pearl. The shapes of Penny's creations are very reminiscent of shapes inherent in our natural environment, be it the trunks of a tree, flow of water, textures on a piece of bark or the uneven shape of a pebble. Teaming these lines and patterns with strong geometric shapes gives Rustic Treasures a bold, contemporary twist.

You will find Penny and her collection of one-of-a-kind, handmade pieces at Hustle&Scout on 21 September. http://www.rustictreasuresjewellery.com/