From agate to amber, a designer has a gem of a business.

THERE’S something hypnotic about watching jewellery maker Judy Burberry, as she uses tiny tools to create exquisite pieces from stones and gems sourced in some of the world’s most exotic places.

It doesn’t seem right to disturb her, so absorbed is she in her work, but indicate your presence with a quiet “hello” and she looks up with a beaming smile, happy to be interrupted and delighted to share her passion for her raw materials.

“I love all the stones, the way they soak up heat and cold, their texture, their temperature,” she says. “ I have to be making things all the time. My husband says I am always fiddling, but I just love beautiful things. Even when I cook, I can’t just cut up a carrot, I have to make beautiful designs and create a display. It is who I am.”

Judy’s bespoke jewellery boutique and workshop, in The Gates, Framwelgate Bridge, Durham City, is a sweetie shop for bauble lovers; home to a dazzling array of delicately worked jewellery.

She can create bespoke pieces to match an outfit, and even breathe new life into old jewellery, redesigning vintage items a customer may have inherited or grown tired of.

She sits at her work table and creates each piece as her customers look on, working deftly with turquoise and agate, amber, freshwater pearls, paua shell, rose quartz, malachite and more.

She finds her materials in Asia and the Middle East, sourcing the fine gems and semi-precious stones and working each with sterling silver to create bracelets, earrings and necklaces.

They’re so tactile, it is difficult not to handle all the pieces in her boutique, from smooth lapis lazuli to delicately textured paua shell. “I get so excited when I have new materials to work with and new designs to try. It is a real pleasure,” she says.

“These materials are of the highest quality,” she says. “The best lapis lazuli, for instance, comes from Afghanistan.

We source materials from Hong Kong, New Zealand and Dubai.

Our jade comes from China, our opal from Australia, and turquoise from Iran, Turkey and the US. The sterling silver I use is from the UK, and only by using the best quality materials can you create pieces like this. I don’t have a favourite material, I just love them all.”

Judy knows the provenance of all her materials, and is able to source goods, including coral, from ethical and sustainable sources, many of them in exotic locations. – a long way from Sherburn Village, just outside Durham City, where she lives with Alan and their four-year-old son, Daniel. Their daughter Karen, 19, has inherited an artistic talent and is studying art at Birmingham University.

Origems began as a hobby, when Judy and her husband Alan, an electrical engineer, lived in Dubai a few years ago. “I started making earrings and things for me, and people would comment on them and ask if I would do something for them. It grew from there,” says Judy, 40, who moved to Dubai in her teens with her family from her native Philippines.

“I was working as a PA, making jewellery, mainly for myself, in my spare time. One day, some ladies asked if they could come to my house and see the collection. They did, and they bought all of it. It was then I decided to do this professionally.”

Judy and Alan moved to the North- East in 2003, and Judy’s designs, which she sells via the Origems shop, Durham Cathedral shop and from the Origems website, have proved just as popular in the UK as in the Middle East.

She established Origems after training in jewellery design and manufacture.

Judy hopes her business will grow, if only to allow her to indulge her passion for creating exquisite pieces.

As she says: “I would do this whether I was paid for it or not. It is a privilege to spend my time doing this.”

■ Origems, The Gates, Framwelgate Bridge, Durham, origems.com