Congratulations to 'Seedlings Collection' who won the 'Make it Real - Best Annual Review Award' through the Young Enterprise Scheme recently!

As part of their Year 13 Business Studies course, Zivana Freeman, Lily Barlow, Ariel De Aguiar and Liv Igaran all got together at the start of the year to brainstorm ideas for their business. 

After first considering the idea of clay earrings, they instead chose to create something more eco-friendly, and landed on the idea of making kauri gum necklaces. From there 'Seedlings Collection' was formed and they began searching for suitable suppliers. They found raw kauri gum and harakeke (flax) necklace rope from two different suppliers on TradeMe and the group purchased fabric for their gift bags from local thrift shops. They also used reused paper from the school to make their seed packets that get given out with every purchase. 

Figuring out how to produce their necklaces was the group's biggest challenge. 

"It's not something you find instructions or tutorials on how to do it because it's not something that's really popular," said Ariel. "So figuring out how to attach the harakeke rope to the kauri gum, or how to polish the kauri gum or how to produce the harakeke rope and make it nice and smooth because we did it once and it was very rough so we had to come up with ideas on how to sort that out." 

When asked what they enjoyed most about the project Lily replied, "I think the outcome, like when you see it completely finished and you think 'Wow, that looks so much better than I thought it would look.'"

For Ariel it was "the idea of being able to make something that is all natural or recycled so that you're not contributing to fast fashion or damage the planet."

And Zivana added, "Also making it affordable for more people because most eco-friendly jewellery is quite expensive...So we really wanted to make something that everyone could afford, even if you're in high school."

Seedlings Collection have had really great feedback from customers appreciating the affordability and the uniqueness of their jewellery. You can find their necklaces for sale at 'Everyday Goodness,' a local wholefoods store and cafe in Stoke, as well as through their instagram and facebook pages. They are also hoping to take their products to the Saturday market soon. Check out their short video here.