By Laura Kingston
Captured Keepsakes is a really unique business in our region. What led you to set it up?
After my son was born in 2009, it became an obsession of mine to capture as many special moments in my family’s life. I’ve always been really creative and over the years I kept developing my skills to find new and different ways to bring my creative visions to life.
I started to get interest from friends who wanted to capture memories in their own families and in 2016 I outgrew my home studio and opened the North East’s first and only dedicated lifecasting and keepsake jewellery studio in my hometown.
I offer two main categories of product – keepsake jewellery is where we capture fingerprints, pawprints, doodles or handprints and footprints onto silver pieces such as necklaces, bracelets and cufflinks. The other is lifecasting, where I create casts of hands, footprints, baby bumps, breasts – you name it, I cast it (within reason)!
By 2019 I was getting loads of interest from people all over the UK who wanted to purchase my designs but couldn’t make it into my studio. Now I can offer a print uploading service so people can create their prints at home and send them to me through our website.
Over the years I have built a reputation for providing quality bespoke keepsakes to lots of very happy parents, grandparents, families and dog owners, with many of my commissions coming from previous customers and recommendations.