I am originally a journalist and started making jewellery in the run-up to our wedding in 2007. Since then I have dabbled in different jewellery making techniques including bead-work and silver-smithing.  I attended the City & Guilds course “3D Studies (Jewellery)” at Cardiff’s Coleg Glan Hafren, a course that took a year to complete. I also learned to work with Precious Metal Clay (PMC) at the Mid Cornwall School of Jewellery Making in Par, where I spent a weekend at the beginner’s course. I am now mostly teaching myself from books and simply experimenting, but I am always looking to improve my skills and go on other courses. 

I discovered polymer clay after seeing several projects by Alison Gallant in “Making Jewellery” magazine and attended one of her one-day workshops in 2010, when she introduced me to the Mokume Gane and Kaleidoscope technique – I very much enjoyed that day and wrote about it for “Making Jewellery”. And since that first taster I am hooked and last year I have attended the Polydays, also organised by Alison. At the moment I am still calling myself a beginner, who is eager to learn as many new techniques as possible and finding my own unique style. I love playing around with textures and mixed media, love Mokume Gane as the results are unpredictable and plan to add animal sculptures to my range. 

I found the polymer clay community a very friendly and generous one when it comes to sharing tips and techniques. I  blog about my work at where you can find reviews of products I test, courses I attended, works in progress and my signature cane tutorial, which I wrote because I couldn’t find one I liked or found helpful enough on the internet. 

I love animals, especially cats, and therefore I feature a lot of animals in my creations.

I am owned by our rescue cat Bobby, who is one my many sources of inspiration and also makes sure I take much-needed breaks. She loves snoozing on the top of the bay window in the conservatory where I have my bench.

I am based in Cardiff and trying to get a Cardiff Guild branch off the ground. You can find out more here.

I try to sell mostly through my website www.helenkawhitedesign.co.uk, but am hoping to get into galleries.

You can find me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HelenkaWhiteDesign

Twitter: twitter.com/Helenka

Website: www.helenkawhitedesign.co.uk

Blog: http://helenspawsforthought.hkpress.co.uk/