Smudges started as a Christmas holiday project - sideways and unplanned, as the best things usually are. I was asking big questions about what I actually wanted my life to look like, and I needed something to do with my hands. I'd tried polymer clay before - too fiddly, not for me. So I started cutting up old painted paper instead, and something clicked. Suddenly, the paintings weren't the finished thing anymore. They were just the beginning. 

The result? Earrings that are bold enough to stop a conversation, colourful enough to be their own outfit, and light enough that you'll forget you're wearing them. That last bit is the paper. It looks like it shouldn't work. It absolutely works.

I'm a tech person by day who designs earring shapes in Figma and then cuts them up by hand. Make that make sense. But that's Smudges - where a slightly chaotic, recovering good girl who spent decades in a box she built herself started making things that are genuinely a bit mad and didn't apologise for it.

Every piece is made from paper I've painted myself, sealed in resin, and put together one at a time. No two are identical. That's not a marketing line — it's just what happens when you make things by hand with paint involved.

My husband Donal tolerates the mess with remarkable grace. My stepdaughter Erin has declared every single thing I've ever made to be her favourite (bless her). And Buster, our Creative Director, has strong opinions about everything and is absolutely not allowed in the studio. (He's in the studio.)

Welcome to Smudges. I hope you find something that feels like it was made for you.

Because honestly? It kind of was.

Aislinn 🖤