Courtney Tyler, Market trader
It's always been a hobby for me. Since I was 11 or 12 I've been collecting beads and stones and making them into jewellery. Then I started travelling and I was getting stones from Nepal and Thailand and India. For the past three years I've been making jewellery and travelling around the world to find the materials.
I have a six-year-old boy and I'm a lone parent so it's really important for me to find something I could do from home. My favourite piece is a three-strand necklace with turquoise, carnelian which is a gorgeous deep orange colour and the third material is a seed from the Himalayas called rudraksha. It's a kind of orange nibbly-looking seed. I finished it with a leather strap and silver beads. I love the way these colours work together.
Just making the piece probably doesn't take that long but if you add in the time it takes to travel around the world to find the beads then it takes a very, very long time. Last Christmas my boyfriend and I took my son to Thailand for four weeks. He's always travelled a lot with me. For a six-year-old he's probably been in more places than most adults.
My business involves selling other things, too. I scrounge all over Bangkok for nice things. There is a family of Nepalese who I always buy from. They sell in the markets. Then when I come home I sell these scarves and other things at markets, festivals and exhibitions.
I started making jewellery when my son was about two. I approached a woman in the George's Street Arcade and told her "I always wanted to do what you're doing." She offered me a job and I worked with her for a couple of years, just selling, but also learning about the business.
When I first travelled to Thailand I just bought a box of things and started small at the market in Cow's Lane. I very much love doing it and the idea of getting to the point where I might make a living from it and be able at the same time to spend time with my son is very exciting. He loves the travel. The trips are like big adventures for the two of us. See www.dancingdragondesigns.com
In conversation with Catherine Cleary.