About us
Greetings from team O&M!
We are Gilly and Emily, a mother and daughter team. We're the lovely ladies who grace the shop floor of Olive & Myrtle, an independant gift shop based in the lovely town of Bellingham, Northumberland. We support up to 16 local artists and creative businesses and have their work on display in the shop. We also stock lots of wonderful, high quality, eco, ethical items.
In July 2020, amidst a global pandemic, Olive & Myrtle opened its doors for the first ever time, emerging from an 11-year creative endeavour consisting of trade, travel and adventure.
Owner Emily (aka Olive!) first started her self employed journey in 2010 working as a full time professional polymer clay jewellery artist. 'Supremily Jewellery' was featured in Vogue back in 2012 and Emily steadily built a faithful customer base through sales at markets and craft fairs, as well as her online Etsy shop.
Despite her accomplishments, there wasn't much room to grow the business, being that it was only Emily making the beads, which were extremely time consuming. She felt exhausted! And so she decided to expand her offerings, and with a huge passion for fair trade she began to source ethical additions for the stall. 'Wild Flower Trading was launched in 2015. This new side of the business was named after her then home surroundings, a 300 year old farmhouse in rural Northumberland surrounded by wild flower meadows.
A friend brought back some jewellery from India, a place that Emily had always been intigued by as her Grandparents had both lived there and her two Aunties both born there. The jewellery was stunning, and the prospect of maybe one day visiting India was beginning to manifest. Slowly sales started to increase with these extra offerings, and so slowly the size of events Emily was able to apply to trade at increased. By the end of 2015 Emily had taken the 'Wild Flower Trading' stall to Glastonbury Festival, WOMAD, Eden Festival and Kelburn Garden Party and had managed to visit India on a stock buying mission herself.
An adventure of a lifetime!
By 2017, Emily had travelled to India twice now for stock and was now trading at the larger Christmas Market in Newcastle upon Tyne, spanning a long 6 weeks, 7 days a week. Still selling her handmade jewellery and unusual finds and enjoying her regular pitch down at the Quayside Market where she had been a regular trader since 2010, Emily continued to build the business bit by bit, meeting countless wonderful new people along the way.
Fast forward a little to 2020, a serendipitous offer of a shop appeared. Located just 8 minutes from her home in the Northumberland National Park. The festivals and markets all cancelled due to the pandemic. A risk, but so so worth it!!!
And so, here we are. The beginnings of Olive & Myrtle, an idea of mother and daughter minds. The creative alter egos, the representation of Olive ~ Peace and Myrtle ~ Good Luck.
Our Ethics
Our ethics are extremely important to our core values, from our eco aims of providing luxury recycled paper bags in store and using eco packaging for all of our online orders. We use green energy and our support of Fair Trade ensures that many of our products (around 70%) have been made in developing countries from sustainable materials with low environmental impact in a safe and friendly workplace where artists receive the fair pay they so rightly deserve.
Our passions
We are passionate about improving the lives of the artisans, their families and their wider communities. As our passions are so shaped around high quality products of the handmade variety, we are delighted to also sell the work of local artists and crafters in the shop, as well as all of the wondrous hand painted fair trade Indian furniture and fair trade gifts we have on show. It's an absolute pleasure to support small local creative businesses by providing them a successful outlet for their work. You can find links to their websites in the main menu on the homepage under 'Local Stockists'.
Last but not least, we are passionate about you, our customers. Both online and face to face, those who have followed the business for 13 years, 5 years or are brand new members of our creative world. We aim to provide a friendly, spacious atmosphere filled with our specially curated collections.
Here's to the beginning of a new adventure, we look forward to welcoming you to our shop, the phoenix that will rise from the ashes of 2020!
If you've happened to read this far and would like to see Wild Flower Trading's website (where you'll find a lot of our fair trade offerings) click here....