It’s a tradition here at Plush Towers, at the beginning of every February we pack up and head northwards for a couple of days of shopping and catching up with jewellery designers and old chums.
Another tradition is the pre-journey fuel up at McDonalds – nothing like a Hash Brown to set you up for the day.

Mmmmmm McDonalds
We’ve been going to Spring Fair for a few years now and with experience you work out that it really is a good idea to remember which of the many car parks you’ve left the car in and more importantly which entrance you use to get into the NEC. It also helps to ‘have a plan’ as the show is so vast there just isn’t time to see it all.
Day one plan: work out who’s where and what’s what. As always, these carefully laid plans quickly scatter to the wind due to the distraction of the sheer shininess of all the jewellery on display. We did catch up with; amongst others, Hazel Atkinson, who has added to her stunning ranges of anodised aluminium jewellery *coming soon* and Juli Miller of Jules Jules whose new ranges using combinations of materials are fabulous *coming soon*.

The View from Our Luxury Accommodation
Day two plan: be distracted by new gorgeous jewellery. It goes without saying that this plan works out much better that the more constrained plan of day one. As a result we’ve got some fantastic news about bespoke engagement rings and wedding bands to bring you soon, keep your eyes open *coming soon*. We passed the Catwalk sponsored by Pandora and spotted the VIP area.

VIP Area - Compact and bijou, Mostyn, compact and bijou
Day three plan: have a good old nose around The Jewellery Quarter and drop in on a couple of designer chums. The Jewellery Quarter is a great place for a mooch about if you are at all interested in jewellery, though on cold day in February with bitter winds it does turn into a slightly swifter mooch than on a nice summer’s day. We caught up with Collette Waudby in her workshop where she was working on pieces from her new Butterfly collection *coming soon*, for anyone already familiar with Collette’s work, you are going to love these new pieces as much as we do.

Collette Waudby - A jeweller in her environment
So, three days in Birmingham and lots of new and exciting things coming to Plush Jewellery in the very near future. All in all a jolly good road trip.
Bestest
Allie
Edit: here’s the promo video for The Jewellery Quarter