It all started with a couple of buttons, followed by a one-way ticket to the Isles of Scilly. It has now grown into a world full of colours, art, and wonders.
Meet Emma, the artist behind Popplestone Studio
Some people also know her as the button lady.
Ask her what she does and she’ll stumble over her words trying to fit an entire creative world in a few sentences, which she won’t be able to do.
One thing is for sure, she is an artist.
Like so many others, she used to be a long-time visitor to the Isles of Scilly. Since the age of two, she spent her annual holidays here, then watching her three wonderful children —now grown into equally wonderful young adults— play in the same rock pools and on the same beaches where she once played as a child.
In January 2019, she made the exciting move to the Isles of Scilly with her husband Mark, leaving behind their home in North Yorkshire, where she spent over twenty years working as a design and technology teacher.
The story of Popplestone Studio
Popplestone Studio originally started as a mini-enterprise with her students, where they’d make buttons during lunch time to then sell during markets.
Over 40 000 buttons later (she stopped counting in 2024), her creative journey evolved, exploring multiple different techniques to create new designs and products.
Her work finally blossomed when she discovered her now-distinctive Klimt technique, using polymer clay to craft delicate, intricate pieces. Art, buttons, scarf pins, jewellery…
She fell in love with the art and hasn’t stopped creating since, always finding inspiration around her to explore harmony and balance found in colours, striving to reflect that in everything she creates.
A touch of the Isles of Scilly wherever you look
Over the years, the Isles of Scilly have been a constant source of inspiration for Emma. Finding beauty in the water, the sand, the flora, and the vibrant colours, all leaving a trace in her art, no matter the piece.
These unique islands have a calming effect, with time and tides creating ever-changing views and colours, always shifting, always stimulating.
Never more than a few metres from the sea, Emma is constantly touched by the coastal winds, an unseen but deeply felt energy that she loves.
The studio on Garrison Lane
In 2024, Emma stepped into The Makery on Garrison Lane, a space Julia had built up with so much care and was ready to hand on. Taking over a shop that already holds a place in people’s hearts isn’t a small thing, and Emma has done it the way she does everything, by filling it with colour and making it her own, without ever forgetting whose shelves she’s standing among. You can see both sides of that story in the Popplestone Collection Knitting Kit, the one product the two of them share. Julia’s Spindrift shawlette pattern comes with special Ted Yarns to knit it in, and a Popplestone Studio pin to finish it off. It’s a handover you can hold in your hands, quietly knitting a little more of the shop’s story together.
Push open the door and you’ll probably forget what you came in for. At the back, the famous button wall glows away, row after row of pattern and colour, and the rest of Emma’s world spills out around it: yarn, jewellery, scarf pins, pictures, wooden kits, trinket dishes. Nobody has ever walked in with a plan and walked out with it intact.
Emma hears it all the time. Someone pops in for one thing and leaves with something completely different, and she loves every time it happens. It’s the whole point of Popplestone Studio, really, a maker who can’t stay in one lane and a shop that won’t either.
What she’s hoping is that you’ll catch the bug. That you’ll pick up a craft you’ve never tried, have a go, make a bit of a mess of it and be perfectly happy anyway. Wonky stitches and uneven edges are very welcome here. They’re proof that a person made it.
If you ever find yourself on the Isles of Scilly, look for the vibrant turquoise shop front and come and discover Emma’s world. She’s always up for a chat.
