About Us

Liam Berge

I've been making this for as long as I remember, as kids me and my brother would play on the balcony of my grandmothers log cabin in Norway and carve out our imaginations onto unsuspecting sticks that would soon be a bow and arrow to be fired at each other, or turned into debarked walking sticks for climbing the surroundings, a scenic Nordic backdrop filled with the scent of coffee and nature that sits with me still and inspires the Sølv in our name.

My creativity has evolved into more hands on work through the years, back in 2017 I took a 3 day leatherworking workshop with Pictavia Leather which lead to me launching Handmade by Liam Berge my first business in handmade goods. I would make wallets, belts and most of all leather coffee cup sleeves which still today I think is one of my favourite makes.

A few years on from there me and my wife went vegan and I had to find a new craft to get into, so I started taking courses in various things, I took a blacksmithing workshop, tried woodworking but both required space which I didn't have, then I tried a 10 week course of Silversmithing in Silverhub Studios in Edinburgh which was perfect. I didn't need a huge space, all I needed was a desk and tools and I could get to work.

I was still trading under Handmade by Liam Berge with the silver but my brother in law was about to help me launch my first website and I had to settle on a name and once I paid for a web address it would make it all final, so after a month of deliberation I decided it was time to change to Coffee Bean Culture. This was with the thought that if you were a customer anywhere outside my local area you wouldn't click a link with my name as you'd never heard it before, but a company name with coffee in the title would hold more weight, and it's been the perfect choice ever since.

Since then I've left the desk and now have a dedicated room for my workbench in the house and I love what doing the craft has given me. I've gotten to work with multiple coffee roasters in making their beans in silver, I've had my coffee themed rings used as engagement rings, and I've even gotten to make our own wedding bands.

As time has changed, so has my work and it's not all coffee themed now, it's still a big focus of mine but not the only thing I'm making. With stone set rings, ash jewellery and even wheat work I decided it was time to change it all and put it under a new name for the last time. One that wouldn't limit me to coffee but whatever I felt like making.

So after a few months of work between me and Demi we settled on Sølv Lines.
This time rather than it being my business this would be both of ours, Sølv for my silver and Lines for her designs.

 

  

Demi Yuill Berge

My love of design has been an outlet for my creativity for a long time. When I was in University I studied Interior Design which was a great way of making a space represent you as a form of expression, and this has formed into the result of my art which I hope would make your own spaces something that represents yourself at home. 

Back in 2019 I lived close to Steampunk Coffee (well it was a 45 minute drive each way but their coffee is so worth the trip), and me and Liam would go often. We got chatting to Cath the owner and struck up a friendship that resulted in me volunteering there to work on a zine which was available in store. One of the designs from the zine became my Coffea arabica print which was the start of me selling my prints under Demi Yuill Designs. I started with an Etsy store alongside selling in a few shops, a range of coffee prints and also some botanical prints which grew into their own collection but the zine was what started off the prints for me and allowed me to grow into the work I do today. 

Since then I've expanded what I do into Lino prints, cards, and even workshops where I teach Lino Printing locally to me from time to time. I've closed off my Etsy store as me and Liam now work under the same name and this is where my side of the Lines lands in from Sølv Lines. 

 

Video Interview from 2020

Back in 2020 Kyle Wilson of Kyles Life was doing a series looking at local businesses from Blairgowrie. I think this was during my transition between business names.