Since so many people use this time coming up to New Year's Eve to look back at the year that was we thought we would share some of our highlights in the Claddagh Design workshop! 2013 was a very busy year for us and it started in January when we won 'Best Overall Product' and 'Best Jewellery Product' at Showcase Ireland.
While exhibiting at Showcase we got to meet lots of lovely new retailers and expanded our list of Irish stockists. It's a great feeling to walk past a shop window and see your designs staring back at you :)
The workshop continued to be very busy with the custom orders increasing. Many of you emailed us with your thoughts and ideas and we worked with you to create unique pieces of jewellery. Our customers really are a talented bunch and the amazing designs that you sent us meant that there were always exciting new projects being executed in the workshop.
During the summer we decided to get out of the workshop for a few days and explore parts of Ireland we had not seen. This brought us to some amazingly beautiful places. It was great to be a tourist in your own country and look at these places with fresh eyes.
The highlight of our trip was our visit to Newgrange, this ancient Irish burial site dates back to 3200 BC making it older than Stonehenge and the pyramids in Egypt!! While we were there I took lots of photos of the stone carvings surrounding the site. They have inspired lots of ideas for new designs that I'm plaining to develop in 2014. If you want to find out more about our trip here's my guide to visiting Newgrange
In August we were featured in a national newspaper 'The Irish Sun', They wrote a piece on the business and how Claddagh Design grew in size since it began in 2010. It was lovely to see how far we've come in such a short time!
Then we finished a great year by celebrating our nomination in the Irish Web Awards. We beat off stiff competition to reach the finals of 'Most Beautiful Website in Ireland' While we didn't win the overall award we did have a great night at the awards ceremony! So there you have it, Claddagh Design a year in review. Here's hoping 2014 will be even more exciting :) Happy New Year to all our customers, thank you so much for all your support over the past year.