Got plans for this weekend? No, we didn’t think so. Keeping yourself occupied in lockdown can be difficult, so if you’re stuck for something to do this weekend, why not enter jeweller Carrie Elizabeth’s design competition?

The jewellery designer, who specialises in gemstone-set jewellery, has devised a way of staying connected with her fan base by inviting them to collaborate creatively. She has launched an open call for designs, her favourites of which will form a new Carrie Elizabeth collection.

“Now, more than ever, it is so important to feel connected and we hope that during these times of isolation, by reaching out to our community, they feel even more connected to us,” says Elizabeth, who is self isolating alone at her home in London. “We had been planning to collaborate with our customers later on in the year towards Christmas, however with everything going on at the moment it definitely felt like it was the right thing to bring it forward and do it now.”

To enter the competition to design your own piece of Carrie Elizabeth jewellery, you must create a digital design or hand sketch and send it by email to the team with the subject ‘Design Competition’ by April 13^th, 2020.

Designs chosen to go through to the sampling stage, during which the jewels will be created to see if they are viable for inclusion in the collaborative collection, will win £250 of Carrie Elizabeth vouchers. Designs that make it through to the next stage and are selected to be part of the final collection will then win their creators an additional £500 in cash, plus they will be gifted their jewellery design. More details can be found on the Carrie Elizabeth Instagram page.

Elizabeth has also been busy creating another collection to help combat some of the anxiety some self isolators might be feeing right now. She recently launched three pendants that carry uplifting messages inspired by the calm the designer used to feel as a child looking out of the window at night and seeing stars. They read: ‘We are all made of stardust’; ‘You have galaxies inside you’; ‘Don’t forget to look at the stars’.

All of the profits from this collection will be donated to mental health charity Mind. The initiative has already got off to a strong start, with the first day of sales generating £2,000 of charitable donations.

“I wanted to design something that reminded each of us to pause, be in the moment and remember how special we are,” says Elizabeth. “When I was young, I used to sit on my windowsill at night, breathing in the smell of the night air and looking up at the dark blue sky. It would make me feel happy and feel full of wonder, looking out at the vast space above me full of twinkling stars.

“As someone who has personally suffered with anxiety in the past, I understand how important it is to have the right mental health support available to us. [Mind] do a fantastic job and we are very honoured to be able to support them with this collection.”