Behind the forge

Hi, I'm Elise and I've been making things with my hands for as long as I can remember.

I grew up in New Zealand, where the outdoors isn't just scenery, it's just there, all around you, all the time. Night skies so full of stars they feel unreal. Ancient forests that make you feel small in the best possible way. Mountains that look like they belong in a story. That sense of wonder followed me when I moved to the UK and honestly, it never left. It's in everything I make.

My love of jewellery started in my grandmother's jewellery box. I was an absolute magpie as a kid, obsessed with anything that caught the light. Then at 16, a birthday party somehow turned into a beading workshop and I made my first necklace from Paua shell. I was so proud of that little thing. That feeling of making something beautiful from nothing, became something I've been chasing ever since.

For years I taught myself through YouTube videos and library books and a lot of trial and error. Then in 2017 I trained in silversmithing at the London Jewellery Academy in Hatton Garden, and everything clicked into place. I set up a small studio, got myself a bench, and started making pieces I actually wanted to wear in the world.

Silversmithing is a proper craft. Every piece goes through my hands dozens of times. Cut, shaped, filed, soldered, hammered, polished. There's no shortcut and I wouldn't want one.

When you wear something from The Elven Smith, you're wearing hours of quiet, focused work. I think that matters.

I'm also, if I'm honest, completely obsessed with gemstones. My collection is bordering on unreasonable. I love colour! Clashing it, layering it or using it to make something sing against a grey English sky. Art Deco geometry, Art Nouveau flow and the wild textures of the natural world all find their way into my designs somehow.

The Elven Smith started as a creative outlet alongside my day job, and it's slowly, steadily becoming something bigger, a creative studio where making things by hand is the whole point. More crafts, more stories, more things that feel like they came from another world entirely.

If any of this resonates - welcome. I'm really glad you're here.

xx Elise