2019 - Our Top Ten Highlights Of The Year

Happy New year! It has been an amazing year in the Lily Blanche studio. I am so proud of the team and of everything we have achieved in 2019, none of which would have been possible without your continued support. So the first thing to say is an enormous THANK YOU to all our customers, friends and followers.

We hope 2020 is your best year yet!

Here are our 2019 highlights

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1) Our Brilliant Team

At Lily Blanche, it is first and foremost about the people and we welcomed some stars to our team in 2019. We said ‘hello’ to Natalie and Kelly – two brilliant creative minds – who have brought drive, energy, dynamism, fun and style to the studio.

Natalie has overhauled our Instagram page with real flair so if you haven’t checked it out, please do so, https://www.instagram.com/lilyblanchejewellery/ We’d love to hang out with you there, where we will be showing off some of the amazing videos and photographs taken by Kelly.

Kelly is our visual content creator and we have some great things planned for 2020 – new collections, new shoots, how to videos and lots more peaks behind the scenes, including the influences and processes which go into to creating a new collection.

We also said ‘hello’ to Marta, who helps to make the jewellery in our workshop and brings lots of skill and dexterity to the process. Also joining us in 2019 was MohammadReza, our brilliant data scientist. MohammadReza completed his Masters degree in data science in the summer and has been helping us to understand and use our data more effectively.

David, our fantastic IT developer, has done amazing work keeping the Lily Blanche website working efficiently and adding new elements. David is working on new systems for personalising the jewellery on our website. We’ve got some great new customisable collections for 2020. Watch this space.

2) A Move To New Offices

In summer 2019, we moved into new offices close to our original studio, which gives us two fantastic spaces to work in. We also had a ministerial visit from the Scottish Business Minister Jamie Hepburn when we became the 650th business to sign the Scottish Business Pledge, which recognises us a fair, ethical and sustainable business, playing a part in our local community.

3) Aawrds - Yeah!

In 2019, we were finalists in two categories in the Association of Scottish Businesswomen’s Awards and won runner up in the prestigious Business Of The Year category. We were also finalists in the Business Women Scotland Awards.

4) Engraving Our Jewellery

We got our new engraving machine at the start of 2019 which has allowed us to add a whole new level of personalisation to the lockets and Memory Keeper bracelets. The jewellery looks amazing when it is personalised whether it is a favourite saying on the back of the Memory Keeper Locket – “Family: where life begins and love never ends” is one of the nicest we’ve engraved this year – to the names of all the family on the individual links on the Memory Keeper bracelets. We’re planning to add more engravable pieces in 2020.

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5) New Collections

We launched our Four Photo Charm Lockets in 2019 which have been an amazing hit. Kelly has developed a great service for filling these lockets with pictures and the results have been well received.

6) Collaborations

We got involved with some lovely collaborations and some great brands in 2019. We loved working with influencer and brand ambassador for luxury Scottish products Solveiginscotland who fell in love with our Gold Memory Keeper Locket and Garnet ring. Her Instagram is amazing. Can you spot Lily Blanche in her feed? https://www.instagram.com/solveiginscotland/

We also loved working with luxury handbag brand Sarah Haran and Natalie ran a great competition to win one of her new jewellery boxes along with a Lily Blanche locket to pop in it. Before Christmas, we ran a competition with our friends at Lux & Bloom to win one of their beautiful hand-printed silk scarves.

7) Celebrities

We caught up with Judy Murray, who has been a great supporter of our brand, made a bespoke Feather Locket for Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and welcomed the Coast presenter and author, Neil Oliver, to the studio in 2019. Neil drew our first competition to win £100 of Lily Blanche jewellery. We plan to run this competition throughout 2020 so there are lots of chances to win.

8) Giving Back

In 2019, we worked with the homeless charity Social Bite, giving to the organisation for every review we received and visiting their village in Edinburgh.

Gillian completed the Growth Advantage Programme for entrepreneurs at Strathclyde University Business School and took over the chair of the British Association of Women Entrepreneurs. She was also instrumental in setting up a new Institute of Ecommerce for Scotland to train a new generation.

9) Tell Us Your Highlihgts

We’d love to hear what you’ve been up to in 2019 and specifically what you’d like to see us do in 2020.

10) 2020 Bring It On!

It’s been a fantastic year for Lily Blanche and we know 2020 is going to be even better. We can’t wait to share our plans and new ideas with you. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to find out when happens next.

Gillian and the Lily Blanche team. x

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