A WANGANUI jewellery designer has won third place in the first-ever New Zealand beading competition. Hazel Kimbrey, who designs under the name "Beadwitch", was announced overall third-place winner among more than 200 entries in the New Zealand National Creative Jewellery Making & Beading Design Awards last Friday. The award was for Hazel'sintricate bridal necklace 'The Brides Heart', a rope necklace composed of crystals, pearls, copper hearts and seed bead rings around the central focus of a heart-shaped shell. The necklace, made with the competition and a bride in mind, was designed around a shell Hazel found in a local shop. It took her about 30 hours to make over the space of several weeks. "I was very pleased [with the prize] actually. I feel when it's your own talent you're not sure whether it's OK or not ... I think having a place in a competition actually does give you some credit," she said. Hazel has a special liking for creating jewellery for brides. "You can sort of just go to town." Hazel's interest in jewellery making began in Devon, England, before she and her husband came to Wanganui four years ago, looking for a change of lifestyle. Her son gave her beads as a birthday present and from there she taught herself how to design and make jewellery, working for hundreds of hours at home creating necklaces, bracelets, earrings and tiaras. The designs were inspired from the beads themselves, from nature and sometimes from other artists. Sometimes ideas would come to her straight away; at other times she would have to think for quite some time. "When you look at other people's work you think 'I could do something like that' and you adapt it ... sometimes it's the beads that give you the idea it depends on the shape and what it's got in it," she said. Hazel, a former midwife, started selling her jewellery about 18 months ago, after people responded to her jewellery and asked her to design some for them as well. Her works are sold through Virtue Jewellery and Bead Supply or on request, but Hazel's next plan is to create a website from which she can commission her work.
