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. Yes.

Now, I'm on my way to catch up with those who have made their dreams come

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 totally say I'm living the dream.

I think that's fair to say.

All kinds of makers from all walks of life have been to my boot camp.

And today we'll be catching up with two who have put the lessons they learnt

into practice and reaped big rewards.

Later, mentor Sunny will be checking in with Andy from Devon, who wanted to

build a career as a keepsake jewellery artist.

It's absolutely crazy how things have worked out. It is a full -time, seven

-a -week business.

First, though, I'm going to drop in on metal artist Lyndon in Essex.

This is not far, actually, from where I grew up. Grew up in Southend.

Nice to be coming home, but this time I'm going to see Lyndon.

When I first met Lyndon at my boot camp in the summer of 2023, he was hoping we

could help him give up his job as a welder and fabricator to create a new

business and dream life.

If I can...

be at home with my family more often, down the workshop. That's definitely

it is for me, and especially my son. I could possibly employ him in the future.

I think he's going to be a manual worker, very hands -on, so if I can

into something that... He struggles with academic stuff, doesn't he? Academic, a

little bit of ADHD, and I think if he can put his efforts into something like

this, brilliant.

To help Lyndon get the sales he needed to build a successful family business, I

set him three challenges.

First was making a volume bee, something he could make quickly and sell

affordably. He decided to make a single metal rose, mounted on a base.

Priced at £50, it was crafted from mild steel and stood 15cm tall with eye

-catching bronze highlights, which added stunning decorative details to the

leaves and petals.

He began using pre -cut steel shapes.

The first stage is to prepare the metal for the petals and take the oxide off.

It makes it look nice and shiny, otherwise it'll look very rusty.

With the petals prepared, Lyndon applied the bronze details using a TIG welder,

a machine that is especially suited to the intricate cosmetic detail often

required on sculptural pieces.

It's using the heat to melt the bronze that just lays on top.

I think the contrast between the bronze and the mild steel, I think it looks

really pretty.

So the bronze has been laid on now to the outside of the petals.

I'm just now to use the wire brush to remove the heat marks.

There's the difference with before and the after.

You can see we're all nice and shiny, catches the light when you look at it at

different angles.

With the petals taking shape, Lyndon cut and added texture to the rose's stem.

He then attached a bolt to hold the petals in place.

As Lyndon worked to build his metalworking business, he was guided by

professional blacksmith Adrian Wood, who runs a successful forge in the Tees

Valley. combining contemporary sculpture with traditional blacksmithing

techniques. When you're making these, are you looking at doing these for

media? Would you consider making a reel, for instance, of how you make these

things and putting a sort of a process together?

I've never really thought about it at the moment, but now you've said it,

absolutely. Is the social media side something you find quite daunting at the

minute? Yeah, I'm not really... Social media, I don't really understand it much

at the moment, and it's...

It's hard for me to think that what I'm doing is good enough to get out there.

And, yeah, that's where my worries are, really. I'm sure we can sort that out.

Whilst Lyndon cracked on making his volume piece, I sat down with Adrian to

about his second challenge.

Before he arrived at my boot camp, I asked Lyndon to make a high -end piece,

item that carries a much more expensive price tag.

He brought along a spectacular steel dragon.

Standing 90 centimetres tall, it took him 100 hours to create and was priced

£2 ,200.

Where do we start with Lyndon's high -end piece?

Goodness me, that dragon.

It's unbelievable the amount of work that he's put into that head. He's

got some lovely textures going on in there.

He's finished it beautifully.

Really has. The size, the proportions, the horns, everything. I would say my

main criticism of the head and the neck.

There's a real disconnect between the two. The texture and the... Yeah, yeah.

And if he'd just brought maybe some of that texture and some of that technique

down into the back of it a little bit, it would fit.

Lyndon's hoping to get £2 ,200 for it. For the amount of work that he's put

it now, I think it's where it is.

Would somebody buy it?

Maybe not. You need that cohesion between the two pieces to make it more

saleable.

Back in the forge, Lyndon was working away on his volume piece, hand -shaping

the petals on his metal rose.

I just go around in a circle, giving them a little twist, just to get them

started.

And then I'll do the rest by hand.

If I get it started, it makes it a lot easier for my hands to work.

And then give them a little crush.

Starts to bring it into shape.

Now I just get the neem leaf pliers and just roll these round.

That's the main part of the rose head done.

With the petals shaped, Lyndon put the finishing touches to his metal rose.

By welding three leaves to a metal stem, cleaning them with a wire brush,

and shaping them.

I just pop the leaf into there. It's usually just one hit.

Like so.

put it in the corner giving it a tap there you go just adds that little bit

shape to the leaves and then because it's only thin rod you can then

them to whatever shape i want them want them bending down that can be done and

there we go and now ready to be welded to the main stem

Lyndon's steel rose with bronze -detailed petals and leaves took him

an hour to make.

And with material costs of around £10, he gave it a price tag of £50.

I love it. I love the colour that he's put into the top of the leaves. I think

it's a really nice, unique, saleable thing. It really makes it. It really

What do you think about an asking price of £50?

£50 is around the right price for a rose.

There's a few elements that I would potentially look at. uh changing

even look at sort of machinery or tooling that could make those leaves pop

little bit more it's just those little things those little attentions to detail

that will elevate the piece of work to make it definitely worth that 50 pounds

would love to see at least the petals or something made of copper so you'll be

able to sort of braze essentially the copper to the steel and mix them

I'll give it a go. Add a new dimension to it. Oh, there's so much potential.

Fantastic. Brilliant.

Thank you very much. I hope so.

We'll find out shortly how Lyndon's roses are selling now.

But for his final challenge at the boot camp, I asked him to make his favourite

piece to find out if the thing he loved making the most could also be a

bestseller.

He chose to craft a 55 centimetre tall metal owl.

Featuring feathers with a delicate bronze detail.

Standing proudly on a 25cm steel branch.

How you doing? Sorry to interrupt you. No, no. I just wanted to see how you're

getting on.

Really well, I think. I'm just starting to make a batch of feathers.

You say it's a feather, but... At the moment, yeah. So hopefully it will look

like that. There's lots more details. I've put some little slits in there. How

are you doing the gold stripe?

I use a flitting disc to cut like a groove, and then I use a TIG welder to

bronze inside the groove, and then you just use a flat disc, flatten it off.

So it's not going all the way through, it's just pouring the surface and then

filling it with the bronze. That's a really nice little detail. Thank you.

I was interested in how Lyndon made his metal owl, but mentor Adrian wanted to

know how he planned to make money from it.

Where are you looking to sort of sell?

It'd be nice to sell at galleries.

Have you identified any galleries in your local area?

There's a couple in my immediate local area. I've contacted them. I haven't

received anything back yet. It might be worth just taking one or two of the

things down with you. You can kind of sell yourself and the product while

there. If they can buy into it, they'll then look at their potential customers

that are going to come along and buy it, and they can sell you.

Lyndon's Metal Owl had a make time of 100 hours.

So in order to show Adrian a finished piece, he brought one along that was

closer to completion.

I have some blanks here which I use for the face.

I've already cut out the holes and some bigger holes here. So I will weld some

ball bearings into these holes to make the eyes.

And also I'll cut with a grinder and I'll put in some feather detailing.

and I'll do that now before I weld them together, otherwise you can't separate

them.

After completing and attaching the owl's face to the body, Lyndon moved

on to finalising the piece.

Just a quick look to make sure he's not wonky.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I'll just reinforce now, do a few more tacks to

sure he's nice and secure, and then the final stage is building around the back

of the head, nice small feathers so it looks... in keeping with the head, then

it's off to lacquer.

Lyndon's owl was absolutely stunning and was packed with personality and detail

in its characterful face.

He painted it with a clear coat of lacquer to protect the metal and add a

It was priced at £1 ,800 and Adrian and I were both impressed with its finish.

It's an incredibly busy piece. There's so much going on within it. Yeah. The

lovely little detail. And this has got an asking price of £1 ,800, which I kind

of get. Yeah, absolutely.

The level of work that you've put into it, the detail, the amount of sort of

steel and the decorations that you've got on there with the bronze TIG

Yeah, I can see it. I can definitely see that price.

It was fantastic sharing Lyndon's passion for metalwork.

As he headed home to Essex, we drew up an action plan to help turn his pieces

into the business he'd one day hoped to share with his son.

First, we challenged him to promote himself more on social media, doing

his making.

Next, Adrian wanted Lyndon to approach galleries with his work in person.

Finally, we both wanted him to consider new tooling and have a go at new

blacksmithing techniques to help improve his pieces.

With Adrian's support, Lyndon had two months to put his action plan into

practice and start building his business.

And job one was investing in new equipment.

I've got my fly press delivered.

Adrian advised me to buy one of these so I can make my leaves quicker and more

uniform.

Hopefully this will change everything about my roses and any other future part

which I can make quickly using this big kit. So hopefully this will get it

unwrapped.

It didn't take Lyndon long to put the fly press to good use, and the new tool

wasn't the only thing helping out in the workshop.

I've got my little boy, Sam, working with me today. He's doing a good job,

doing a very good job. Another bit of good news is a commission.

Two commissions have come in for animals, coming by email, which is

He also knuckled down to getting himself out more on social media.

I'm going to try and make some clips and some pictures to try and boost my

social media presence. At the moment, I've got a very, very low presence. I

think I need to just go for it. Put some videos out there and see what happens.

As he tried to kick -start his business, Lyndon did everything we asked of him.

And after two months of hard graft, he reported back to us with brilliant news.

I've made £2 ,700.

2 ,700.

I'm very happy with that, if I think so. Yeah.

I'm certainly looking forward to making this into a business. This is where I

want to be. This is what I want to do.

Lyndon needed to deduct his costs from his fantastic sales figures, but he was

definitely on the right track to creating a brilliant business.

Two and a half years later, I'm on my way to his workshop in Essex to hear all

about how he's done just that.

and how much money he's making now.

Hello?

Lyndon?

Hello, there he is. Hello, mate.

Oh, it's so good to see you. It's nice to see you again. I've got so much to

show you. Lead the way. Come with me, come with me. Look at this place.

There we go.

From the outside, I had high hopes for Lyndon's workshop.

And now I'm inside, it doesn't disappoint.

I'm blown away. I didn't know what to expect.

I knew it was going to be good, but you've got a good setup here. I build

much everything on here.

I use the shear over there to cut my rod.

I've got the drill press, my vices.

Yeah. And I've got the room next door, which is where all my parts are kept.

And I've got my nice new bead roller there.

Beautiful. It's a proper running organisation now, isn't it?

Yeah. Considering from two years ago there was nothing, I'm really, really

proud. Yeah.

When I first met Lyndon, he'd only sold one item.

Now he's got a brilliant workshop and an amazing new business.

This is dispatch.

This is dispatch area.

Yeah? Yeah, so parts, completed items, wrapped up on here, out they go.

You're kidding me. All these tubs behind you, this is all... Parts. Your

organisation. You've got this sorted. It's got to be perfect to make it work.

It's been two and a half years.

Since you were last at our business boot camp.

Yes. How has the business developed over that time?

It's kept me very busy. I'd only sold one rose when I last met you at the boot

camp. Yes. And from then, it's up into the very, very high hundreds now.

Hundreds? Just short of a thousand orders now in that time.

Wow. It blows me away. What products in particular have helped grow the

business?

Well, I must say, it's the one that you actually asked me to.

You said you'd like to see the Copper Rose.

This was your volume piece, wasn't it? Yes, this was the one I built at the

camp last time.

You'd like to see Copper Rose. I made Copper Rose, and I must admit, thank you

so much, because that has been the most popular item.

With material costs of up to £25, Lyndon's new Copper Rose has a price tag

£60.

Along with the other versions he's developed, he's sold a whopping 500

since he was at the bootcamp, as well as other flowers priced at £45 to £130.

But it's not just the volume pieces that are bringing in the money. How about

the high -end pieces?

Are they selling?

Yes, yeah, they sell as well. Yeah, very pleased, very pleased.

I love Lyndon's larger, more sculptural pieces.

So it's good to hear they're selling too, with his bonsai trees going for

to £800 depending on their size.

It's the volume pieces that are driving the growth of his business though, and

he's going to show me how he makes his best -selling copper rose.

He starts by cutting a piece of stainless steel to length and shaping it

vice with a hammer.

Then it's time to make the leaf.

And Lyndon's son Sam is lending a hand.

So, Sam, how are you going to turn that into a lifelike leaf?

Well, this is the tool that my dad made, and so basically you put it under... Go

on, show us.

Yeah. You put it under that, you line it up, and you just smack it,

and it just makes a detail on the leaf.

Yeah, but this is the beauty of organic things like plants. They're all a bit

different. Yeah. None of them are all the same.

And then you could do the sides.

Or make a leaf.

With the leaves shaped and the leaf stem cut, Lyndon welds them together and

cleans them with a wire brush.

Next, he welds a bolt onto a pre -made flower stem that will hold the copper

leaves in place.

Then it's time to weld the flower and leaf stand together.

So I made a dummy flower head.

Okay. That will be screwed onto there.

And that is going to give a representation of where that copper will

So you can eye up where the leaves go. Exactly. Because if I put the copper on

there now, the welding might damage the copper which is already on there. Yeah.

If it's a painted flower, it could get damaged.

So I use a dummy rose and then I use this.

And I just eye it up, stop the form.

So this is where your creative, artistic eye comes in and you're kind of eyeing,

deciding whether the leaves go on the left or the right, the shape of it. The

shape. This is, yeah.

And then I can use that as a guide, hold the leaves together, give it a weld,

and then move on.

It's brilliant to watch Lyndon work again. And after welding the flower and

stems of the rose together, he places and secures the petals and is letting me

have a go at shaping them.

Bending this up. You can pull that all the way up, start off with, and then

you've got lots of space.

It's quite easy. I find it easy as it is. Hold it with one hand and then just

use... You've got a little bend that way, a little bend.

And that's it, and back. A little bend there.

There we go. It's all yet.

Do it to how you want to do it. Make it your own.

No, I want to make it.

I told you to be happy, Lyndon.

I'm happy. I'm not the only here.

Keep squeezing, keep squeezing.

I'm trying, Lyndon.

Helping Lyndon shape the rose petals has made it even clearer to me what a

talented maker he is.

Don't be afraid to get some pressure on that with your left hand.

I'm not sure I'm looking forward to getting his verdict on my efforts.

Lyndon, I think, I know your critical eye has been watching over me. I've

been so nervous, but look, for a beginner, come on. I don't think that's

bad. I think that's pretty good.

Lyndon's new Copper Rose comes with a price tag of £60.

I'm delighted he acted on my suggestion to create it, along with promoting

himself on social media, where he now has almost 2 ,000 followers, watching

fab how -to videos.

But have the other pointers Adrian and I gave him helped him to build his

business over the past two and a half years?

Lyndon, whilst you were last at the boot camp, we did send you away with a bit

of an action plan, some key points to work on. One of those being to try and

sell your work in galleries, trying to approach some galleries to see if

take it on. Yes. How did you get on? Very well. I was very lucky to put three

my items into a sculpture park, two of which have sold.

and have moved on. Wow.

Yep. Congratulations.

Thank you. My owl, which was my favourite from the boot camp, that's

and another sculpture park is going to be taking pieces in the future.

Wow. My volume pieces and larger pieces. So, very happy. Mate, that is

absolutely brilliant.

Lyndon sold his owl for the £1 ,800 price tag he put on it at the boot camp.

It's a fantastic achievement.

and forming good relationships with sculpture parks is a great way of

sell his high -end pieces in the future another thing adrian wanted you to work

on was your tooling to try and speed up efficiency and make things more

efficiently yeah i've made three sets of tooling specifically for my bonsai

trees this is so clever so it's basically this is the male and female

two -part dies am i right i'm thinking then you can get a laser cut flat blank

of the leaves yes put that in the fly, have this tooling in the fly press, drop

that in, crank that, and you'll get all of this texture embossed in.

Every time. I can completely appreciate the amount of work in designing and

thinking and developing and making these.

It must have taken you a long time.

It really did. Yeah. Yeah, each one, there's been three, four throwaway

versions. Absolutely. Because they never come out perfect.

These ones are working.

The rest are in the bin.

Lyndon's taken on board all the advice we gave him and two and a half years

after coming to my boot camp, I'm looking forward to finding out what

that's had on his job as a fabricator and his finances.

The last time we were together, your job was a fabricator and this was a hobby,

maybe. Has that changed now at all?

I'm now doing three days a week fabrication and the rest of the week

time, from my business, for whatever work I've done in my life, I've always

away. And to have the chance to be at home, not a lot of people get that

to work with family in the way that I'd like to do.

Do you mind if we talk about numbers now?

Is it fair to say this craft or this skill that you've now got is earning an

income for you?

Yes, I've been very proud to say it's on average about £25 ,000 a year.

£25 ,000 a year?

which I'm blown away by. Wow.

It's incredible.

My business plan is to completely reinvest, improve techniques, improve my

tooling. And you've created such a unique environment here where your son

come and get stuck in and have fun and learn amazing skills, learn from you,

just be in this environment. And I think it's a beautiful thing. It's really

lovely what you've created.

And I wish you the best of luck. Thank you very much, sir.

Going from a hobby that earned nothing to making a profit of £25 ,000 a year

after taking off his costs is a truly amazing achievement.

The fact that Lyndon's only working on his business two to three days a week

makes it even more spectacular and is a real testament to his talent and

determination.

What I've been through for the last couple of years has showed, really, it

working.

Fathers get the chance to spend time at work with their children, so I'm very

privileged in that respect.

The amount of orders I've taken, I'm very grateful for, and I can see it's

to keep going, it's going to keep growing. I'm very proud.

It's working.

It's working.

The second maker we're catching up with today is keepsake jeweller Andy from

Devon. She came to my boot camp in the summer of 2024 after taking the very big

decision to give up her job as a furniture sales assistant to pursue her

for keepsake jewellery.

I'm a keepsake artist. I encapsulate things like cremation ashes, pepper,

I just love the idea of capturing a memory and creating something really

precious from it.

Like Lyndon, I set Andy three challenges.

and for her volume piece she decided to create a keepsake channel ring, which

she hoped to sell for £114.

Made from a pre -bought tungsten carbide ring, opals and an inclusion of hair

from a loved one were sandwiched between layers of UV resin mixed with coloured

pigment.

I'm going to fill the channel of the ring with the resin, just trying to make

sure that it's not... pouring over the edges just because it just gives us a

more work to do later on if it goes everywhere.

After filling the channel of the ring with two layers of coloured resin Andy

began adding the opals.

Just making sure that the opals don't actually go any higher than

sort of the level setting of the ring because if it does then once I put the

layer of resin on and cure it and I sand it down and polish it There are going

to be little patches where the opal is sticking out. I am just going to cure

this under the UV lamp.

I just rotate it very slowly as I go. I'm using a UV -based resin, which means

that with a UV light, the resin liquid will turn into a solid after curing

the light for a few seconds.

To help her make money from her work, Andy was mentored by professional

Sunny Bailey -Aird.

And whilst she focused on making her channel ring, I sat down with Sunny to

about her second challenge.

I asked her to bring her favourite piece to the bootcamp to see if what she

loved making the most could be a big seller.

She decided to showcase a pendant encapsulating fur from her pet cat,

had recently passed away.

Excluding curing time, it took her around an hour to make. And with

costs of £35...

She gave it a price tag of £61 .50.

What are your thoughts on Andy's favourite piece?

It's crispy clean. It looks nice and tidy.

The only thing I would like Andy to try and change is...

to instead of buying in components, I'd love to see Andy dip her toe into the

actual making of the mount. She needs to do these stories as much justice as

possible. And the stories deserve nothing less than handmade.

How can we help Andy at the moment? Any key points for her? Her main market is

where she's from. So we want to try to expand that. Obviously, the first port

call here is social media.

Sharing the story online is going to do nothing but draw more eyes to her work.

And that's the most important part.

Back on the jewellery station, Andy was adding hair to her keepsake channel

ring. I like having the responsibility of working with things that are so

precious to people.

You can really tell how much somebody meant to somebody.

This is a final layer of resin, making sure that it isn't the channel part,

because anything that does come over the sides accidentally is going to be

sanded and polished back.

When she arrived at my boot camp... Andy had been making keepsake jewellery for

three years.

It was something she started following a day out with a former partner.

Around 2021, I was really fortunate enough to kind of attend this really

beach day and I thought, you know, I really wanted to capture this memory. So

I've acted sort of like a handful of shells. I made some resin jewellery and

from there it's gone from shells to fur to ashes and I just love making it.

After hardening the top layer of resin in her ring under a UV light, Andy moved

on to applying the finishing touches.

Just making sure that the surface of the ring doesn't have deep scratches.

The next step would just be to polish and then we're pretty much done.

With material costs of around £30 and a make time of 90 minutes, Andy's channel

ring was beautifully made.

With kiln and workshop costs to consider as well, She gave it a price tag of

£114.

I think there's so much potential for this design. The really simple way that

can elevate this is essentially take a mould of the base ring without the

get it cast up into silver, and we can outsource that. And then that

just increases the preciousness and the customer's perceived value of the piece

is instantly higher.

At the moment, this is priced at £114.

Do you think you'll still be able to make that for the same price out of

We might have to increase it a touch, because mould making, getting the cast,

and obviously the precious metal itself is going to come at a slightly higher

price, but it's not going to be earth -shaking.

For both of her first two pieces, Sonny wanted Andy to raise the level of her

work by using higher quality materials.

And for her third task, he gave her a special mentor's challenge that was

designed to make her do just that.

I picked this challenge for Andy because using nicer materials is going to in

turn elevate her designs and it's also going to come on a higher price point.

have to make sure that she's doing the stories justice.

To try and create a higher end piece, Andy decided to make a domed glass

keepsake pendant.

Ground fragments of glass known as frit and ashes were mixed and fused together

inside a glass cap and set in a pre -bought silver mount.

After cutting the glass cap, Andy assembled the frit and ashes mix.

These ashes are actually donated to me. They are horse ashes.

So I've got a tiny, tiny bit of ashes. I'm just going to very gently tap

I don't want it to get anywhere else.

The frit and ashes mix needed topping off with a glass cap.

which would form a glass stone after being fired in the kiln.

As she was experimenting with the process, Andy made a number of them to

sure she had one that fit inside a pre -built silver mount.

I'm just going to make a few more and then it's going to be ready to go inside

the kiln.

All right, Andy.

Oh, hello.

I'm seeing lots of activity on over. I couldn't contain myself.

What are you working on at the minute? I'm pretty much just sandwiching the

horse's ashes between two bits of fret, just hoping that when it's fusing in the

kiln, it really fuses in sort of one hole.

That's what I'm really hoping for.

The stones took four hours to form and then needed to be left to cool for

several more before being ready to be glued in to pre -bought silver mounts.

With such a long prep time, Andy brought along a finished pendant to be able to

show Sonny and I a completed piece.

It was priced at £120 to £140.

The thing that jumps out to me is the contrast of colours you've got in there,

you've got that...

crispy almost crystal ball like glass and then you've got that deep greeny

and you can see the ashes super clearly and you've actually smashed the actual

making of the glass too memorials mean a lot to you but there's another side to

encapsulating these memories have you ever thought about celebrations you

go into newborn babies you can go into honeymoons commemorating any journey or

part of life if you will

Andy's skill and passion for keepsake jewelry was clear to see, and as she

headed back to Devon, Sonny drew up an action plan to help her start getting

sales she needed.

First, he asked her to make her own mounts and rings by hand, and also use

instead of resin to make her pieces more high -end.

Next, Sonny wanted Andy to share what she does online to reach out to

beyond her local area.

Finally, she needed to think about developing collections of keepsake

for celebratory events.

With Sunny's support, we gave Andy two months to work on our advice and get the

sales coming in. She started by making her pieces more high -end. I've ordered

powder glass, I've ordered fine and medium frets.

and I'm going to experiment with sort of getting the colour right, and then I'm

going to start incorporating the ashes again into that.

And instead of trying to make the stone to fit the setting, I'm going to make my

own settings that are going to fit the stone. I'll go through the whole process

of, you know, like what a typical jeweller or silversmith would do.

Andy also worked on creating a collection of pieces to celebrate other

events, like babies and birthdays, as well as promoting herself on social

Last night, I scheduled a post to be released this morning, and I've seen my

face and my work all over social media.

In the eight weeks after my boot camp, Andy worked around the clock following

our advice.

And when she came back to fill us in on her latest achievements, she'd done

herself proud.

Do you mind if I ask how much you've made over the last eight weeks?

I've made just shy of £1 ,800.

Literally just the action points alone has allowed me to sort of go down that

path. This is just the start, so look at this eight weeks as just the beginning.

You can take it wherever you want.

Andy had to take off her costs from her fabulous sales figures, but Sunny was

bang on.

She'd created a business with huge potential.

18 months after she first came to the boot camp, I've asked him to head down

Devon to visit her at her new workshop and find out how she's fulfilled it.

Andy, hello, mate. Hi, how are you?

Good, you? I'm OK, thank you. Come on in, come on in.

When she came to the boot camp, Andy was making her pieces in the spare room in

her house.

Now, as well as this brilliant new workshop, she's also got a consultation

next door.

where clients can come in and tell her their stories.

Andy, your space is incredible.

But am I right in saying that the business is moving alongside that? Yeah,

absolutely crazy how things have worked out. People are researching my name

online and finding my pieces. And also I'm hiring people and I'm paying people

commission to help me with my own designs and my own collections.

So yeah, it really is working out absolutely great. It is a business. It's

full -time...

Seven -day -a -week business.

So which pieces do you think the bootcamp have been your bestsellers?

We wanted to make a higher -end product, so one of the things that we wanted to

work on was fabricating things from start to finish and not buying pre -made

stuff and working with glass. So I've kind of put them both together and

making my own glass rings and pendants, which has been a bestseller.

Andy's new glass rings are priced from £130 and her pendants from £140.

It's great to see her embracing Sunny's advice, and she's also created a new

personalised ashes and gemstone dust pendant.

It has a price tag of £250, and she's going to show Sunny how she makes it.

This is basically going to be the start of a pendant. So what we tend to do, or

at least the concept of this one, is to put ashes and sort of crushed up

gemstones inside.

The middle bit is going to be the thing that resonates with the customer. So it

might be a shape for heart, it might be a paw print, it might be a smiley face

if they really wanted.

But once we file it down, we'll be able to see, obviously, the contrast between

the gemstones and also the silver.

The customer's shape in the silver square is created using CAD, or computer

-aided design technology, from which the piece is then cast from a wax model.

After soldering the pendant and ring that will hold the chain in place

Andy moves on to filing and sanding to remove any scratches and imperfections

from the casting process.

But rather than holding the piece in her hand, Sunny wants her to brace it

against her bench peg to speed up the process.

If you're loose, you can't apply enough pressure. Yeah.

Whereas if you brace it, now you can get stuck in there.

So you brace it against there and you come in with four.

Oh, yeah, I can see, yeah.

So much better.

So I've been spending so much time trying to...

Trying to figure it out because it was just taking me so long.

Yeah, man, get stuck in there. Don't be shy.

That's a great tip from Summit.

To fill the spaces around the silver heart in her pendant, Andy mixes crushed

gemstones and ashes.

One spoon of the obsidian.

I'm going to do a scoop of this in there like that.

So I'm going to give it a shake just to make sure I'm happy with the colour

itself.

Eh, quite like that.

I think that's nice. Yeah, it's nice.

After carefully placing the mix around the heart... I'm going to use a really

fine brush just to push all of the excess into the gap.

Andy secures it in place with three layers of an adhesive which is more

than resin.

We see it filling the channel.

I'll wait till it cures and then we're ready to polish.

After filing, sanding and polishing the pendant, Andy moves on to creating an

inscription on the back using an engraver she's been able to buy from the

profits of her business.

Just for the purpose of this, I'm going to put mum.

So, start it.

It's going to be a little bit hot.

It's actually come out really, really well.

I personally like really squiggly font, and I think it just looks, like, really

gentle and nice.

And the fact that this is on the back of a pendant that would contain, for

example, potentially someone's mum's ashes, it just gives an extra

element to it. So, yeah, I'm really happy.

With material costs of £130 and a make time of up to five hours...

Andy's new personalised pendants are priced at £250.

It's great to see her throwing herself into making new designs and higher -end

jewellery. She's also made some pieces for celebratory events, but I'm keen to

know if she's been promoting herself on social media and find out how much money

she's now making.

quite a lot to do after boot camp and one of those challenges was to

try and get your work out there online show some of the process to social media

followers etc have you been getting over that so i think one of the things you

said to me before was to make reels um and to share like stories and stuff

online a little bit more which i have done um but i'm still in that process of

learning um you know, like learning the actual skill.

And I think when I know a product very, very well and I can do it from start to

finish like very quickly, I'm happily able to sort of record and make like

social media content.

And that's been proven really successful.

I'm getting like thousands of engagements, which is great.

And they're translating into orders and visits to the website, which I can track

through analytics.

Amazing.

It's clear that Andy has been working hard for the past year and a half.

And I'm looking forward to hearing exactly what that's meant for her bank

balance. From what I can see, you're absolutely smashing it. And it seems

you're, well, you can see you're glowing from sort of the enjoyment and all the

work that you've been putting into it.

But with a business, there also needs to be a pound note involved as well.

Have you been making some money for yourself?

So, currently at the moment I'm making around £35 ,000.

Proper money, well, it's a business.

Yeah, it's a full business.

I can finally say I've made it. So I am happy.

To go from almost nothing to having an income of £35 ,000 a year after cost in

just 18 months is a phenomenal achievement.

And it's proof of Andy's drive and can -do attitude.

These have been the most stressful but intense but rewarding 18 months of my

life. It's turned what was a hobby into a full business and it's put me in

exactly the position that I wanted to be in. I'm really looking forward to every

single day that comes because I get so many opportunities to do so many amazing

things and I'm forever grateful.

Andy and Lyndon's success is well deserved.

They've taken the advice from their mentors and with an enormous amount of

work, turned it into businesses they can be very proud of.

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