A Starter's Journey

I have become a gemstone and fashion lover! Gems, beauty, well-being, and luxury, to me, are integrity that brings happiness to our lives.

My career as an academic at a University Business School has enhanced my detailed professional skills in research and teaching. However, my hectic lifestyle results in mental and physical alerts, which urged me to rethink how to relax, enjoy, and subsequently enhance my energy and well-being. Meditation, which I started in the summer of 2015, has changed my life completely. Through mindfulness meditation, I have relearned to pay attention to small and nice things around me and look at life from a different perspective. My years of interest in astrology and nature triggered my research in geology and practices with gemstones, which relate to our birthstones, birthday stones, and zodiac stones. In the summer of 2018, I started to buy gemstone pieces that are related to my birth and astrological sciences. When I travelled to the USA at that time, I found that more variety of gemstone pieces are available in countries with large land such as China and USA. My China knowledge came from my childhood because many Chinese use jade items for bringing luck. While buying many gem items, I also realised that I needed one after another because different meanings of gems suit for wearing in different situations. This made me think about making!

Back in 2012, I bought a jewellery-making kit from John Lewis in Nottingham and thought that I shall try to make some jewellery by hand. I did make one bracelet and a couple of earrings at that time using alloy materials and glass mixed beads in that kit. Then time was taken all by pursuing a career and living. That hobby was left behind but I did keep the kit. I found it out. Then, I went to the Waterstones and bought one geology gems book. I was entirely attracted to the shining gems printed in that book! I ordered a book from Amazon that focused on the meaning of each of the selected useful gems for our daily use. I also went to the Bead Shop in Nottingham and bought my most needed gems Amethyst and some coral. These are closely related to my birth month March and my star sign Aries! I watched a couple of YouTube videos and started making them! Even though I was short of proper tools, I did make a few pieces that satisfied me in October 2018, including two sets for a colleague/friend who was moving away. See my contented smile in the photo attached with two out of the few sets I made! The whole process felt so natural and the completed pieces made me feel so happy! From that point, I listened to my instinct in my daily activities on jewellery tools purchase and gemstone orders. If my instinct told me 'Yes you shall go forward with this' I just did it. In about two weeks' time, I had got most tools I need to make quality pieces and discovered a few suppliers that I have kept ordering from them up to now! I even managed to attend a big bead show in Esher in October 2018.

My initial and deeply true happiness is from when I look at the different colours of gems and touch their textures, which match up with the properties that I read in books and articles. I feel that the gems are talking to me. To deal with daily pressure and various emotional needs, I sometimes wear different sets of gems by changing roughly at lunchtime. However, based on the choice of the meaning of the stones, I often match the colour of the gems I wear with the colour of the clothes I wear on the day. After all, I love fashion and like to look fashionable. Here you go - the part of the brand name Fashionqueen was created! Li was my late mother's surname! She was a very successful saleswoman and an entrepreneur in China, a famous labour model for our city (a small town in the Northeast of China), our province (a big province), and our country (a very big one:)! Therefore, I branded my gem pieces as Fashionqueenli and used FQli in my logo. I thereafter applied and obtained a registered trademark in November 2018. The design of my logo also came to my mind naturally and I am very happy with it too!

Working with gemstones adds enormous value to my meditation activities and transforms my meditation experiences into beauty and a feeling of luxury. With my moods and situations altering daily or even hourly, I have experienced the powerful properties each gem offers when benefiting from wearing different pieces.

Hand-making gemstone jewellery offers me diverse activities from reading books and articles on geology, astrology, and the meaning of gems to selecting gems from making jewellery, packaging and taking photos of these natural objects in various backgrounds to delivering them to my customers who need them. I often feel powerful energy and happiness rising throughout all my seven chakras when working with gems. I believe it is important to share my experiences with you. This could be understanding one's birth and lucky stones, the properties of different gemstones, and the beautiful colour and style that each piece of gemstone jewellery offers to enlighten our daily lives.

I design only when my inspiration rises so my pieces are rare and more unique. Each time, I only purpose a small number of gems that attract me. Thanks to meditation and gemstone properties, I feel my creativity and intuition becoming more original and closer to nature and much deeper from my heart. Being of Chinese origin (from the Northeast land of China) and having lived in the UK for about two decades, I strongly believe that my design embraces both Eastern and Western tastes, fitting with outlooks preferred by different cultures.

I make ladies' gemstone necklaces, bracelets, earrings and men's bracelets to a high standard to reflect the power and value of the gems selected. We need different gems to support us in different situations. If you prefer a particular gem or require special properties from a gem, I would be happy to advise and/or make the piece for you. All gemstones and materials used are of very high quality to reflect their true beauty. I trust quality products and warm services make you happy! Apart from the 30-day return policy, I provide a 3-month – one-year warranty for all my objects on the product making faulty. Thereafter, I would be happy to help you with repair for a reasonable fee.

Since I started beading as a hobby, I have helped neighbours and ex-colleagues fix their broken but deeply loved gemstone necklaces and bracelets and made them and myself so happy! So that I learned some jewellery can be very sentimental, I, therefore, offer repair services for gemstone pieces. I just love working with gems!