Stunning handcrafted jewellery, fun and fascinating workshops and service with a smile – this is just a small snippet of what you can expect when you walk through the door of Coastal Silver in Cleethorpes.
Situated at the Meridian Point Craft Units on Meridian Road, the shop was opened in 2013 by Andrea Warnock, whose longstanding passion for arts and crafts inspired her to launch her own business, teaching other people to create beautiful pieces of jewellery.
More than a decade on, and Coastal Silver is thriving, with the success of the venture enabling Andrea and her family to open a shop next-door-but-one to the original workshop, selling an array of handcrafted sterling silver and sea glass necklaces, bracelets and rings, as well as poignant pieces made using the ashes of a customer’s loved ones.
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Speaking to Grimsby Live, Andrea said: “I moved here from Sheffield in 2013 and I just thought this little unit would do for a workshop, because I used to do it at home in my shed when I was a foster carer, as a hobby. I did it for years and years and years and taught my children to do it.
“I’m into every craft going. You name it, I’m sat at home doing it. I paint, I do driftwood art, I do everything going. When I’m sitting at night, I’m always doing something. But when we came here I thought, the jewellery is the one that will pay the way, so I started this thinking it’d just be a workshop, but then the workshops got busy, so we got another shop next-door-but-one and then the memorial jewellery took off, so we put that into the new shop as well.
“There’s four of us who are all smiths – me, my husband, my son and my daughter – so we’re always producing something, which means our cabinets are usually quite full.”
Speaking about the workshops offered at Coastal Silver, Andrea said: “We do lots of hen do’s and birthday parties, and we offer engagement ring workshops for the man or the woman. A lady came in and made one for her partner last weekend and she made a sea glass ring with two diamonds at each side, which was gorgeous. We do wedding ring workshops, too – you name it, we’ll do it.
“We source sea glass from across the country. Me and John are semi-retired and our kids are stepping up more, so we go off in our campervan and collect sea glass from Scotland down to Cornwall. We love the hunt, we get so excited. When we find a marble, we do a little dance. [Sea glass] is so colourful and popular, and it’s recycled. People love it.”
Last summer, Coastal Silver was featured on the hit Channel 5 programme, Susan Calman’s Summer by the Sea, just a few months after a feature on the business was printed in Countrylife magazine.
Andrea said: “It’s a very big magazine so we were very surprised – and we got a full page feature in there for the work we do with sea glass and the recycling side of it. We were in the ‘Remembering Queen Elizabeth II’ edition.
“The way a hobby has turned into all this is absolutely crazy. People say to me, ‘did you expect it to be like this?’ and I say no. But it’s all about customer service for us. We’ll go that extra mile – we’re not here just to make money, we’re here to cater to what people want.”
You can like Coastal Silver on Facebook here.