Dunfermline: Scottish Sea Glass fundraising for Prince's Trust

Artist Gaynor Hebden-Smith launched her business, Scottish Sea Glass, from her kitchen table in 2009 and now sells her works to buyers across the world.

She has teamed up with Amy McCusker, from Weebox, a company which delivers subscription boxes with Scottish goodies internationally, to raise £5000 for the Prince's Trust Change a Girl's Life Campaign.

Running alongside International Women's Day, which took place last week, the campaign aims to help young women break down barriers through employment and education.

Gaynor, a former occupational therapist, told the Press: "I've collected sea glass all my life, it's something that I've always done, and I've always been creative, whenever I got a spare minute that is what I did.

"I've tried lots of things, painting and sewing, lots of different things, I've always loved being out in nature.

"It all came together and I thought I could make something with everything that I've collected, I was getting so much of it I knew I had to do something.

She continued: "It just organically came together, I started to make pieces and went to lots of different craft fairs and it was sailing.

"I'm not a sales person at all so was recommended Scotland's trade fairs and that's when it changed from being a little kitchen table hobby to a business."

Gaynor creates jewellery and sculptures, which she sells on her website and in certain shops, and takes commissions from anyone looking for a more personal item.

She collects glass from all over Scotland but finds that beaches in Fife can be the most rich source of materials, due to waste from a historic glass factory still being present on our shores.

She said: "I'm very much guided by the sea glass that I find because obviously every piece is different, that inspires the designs for the customers who come to me and ask me to make specific pieces for them.

"It can be glass they've collected themselves used in the pieces so it's quite meaningful, recently I've been making a few pieces for people who have lost a loved one and they collected the glass together so they'd like it to be made into a keepsake to remind them.

"It's lovely, I am totally humbled to be able to make pieces like that for people because it captures something, it's more than just a piece of jewellery.

"With my background in occupational therapy I've always like to fix people and try to help people and I've missed doing that with the jewellery, even though I know it brings a lot of joy to people.

"The most meaningful ones are when people tell me the stories behind what I am making, there are genuinely times where I've found it quite difficult to make pieces because of the reasons people have asked me to make them."

For the next year Gaynor will be channelling her love for helping others by working with Amy to raise money for the Prince's Trust and women in need of additional support.

She said: "We realised we could do something to raise money by doing the jobs we love.

"I make the wish bracelets and we thought that was a really fitting design and meaning behind the Prince's Trust campaign of 'Change a Girl's Life' which is very much to do with vulnerable women.

"The piece that I make has the idea that you make a wish and when it frays away the wish comes true."

Gaynor added: "Even the sea glass captures that as its been thrown away and discarded and it's been battered by the elements, it's broken and it's not what it was but it still holds value and still holds meaning in it's new shape.

"Some people class it as rubbish but for other people who use it right its true potential can come out, and we felt that captured something beautiful in line with what the Prince's Trust are trying to do."