About Us

The brand

Have you ever felt deeply impacted by the immensity of nature, alone on a mountain surrounded by silence, lying on the sand listening to the sound of the sea sweetly touching that sand? I know you are a tree hugger and a spider lover! Perhaps I'm overextending myself here...But, do you feel this deep connection with the natural world since you were a child?

If you find it as inspiring as I do, and that you need this connection to find your balance, you'll understand why my jewellery pieces are about nature, plants, animals and landscapes. We can't be there all the time, just taking it all in or playing with our dog, but we can certainly take it all in the form of a piece of jewellery. Maybe even arouse curiosity so that we can tell that funny story about our mischievous but very cute cat!

I create colourful jewellery with glass that I collect and upcycle by making miniature paintings, then turn it into a wearable piece. I've also recently introduced old and difficult techniques such as Cloisonné and Champlevé for their beauty, durability and because it's not my moto to make my life easier (at all) when it comes to adding some beauty to this world. From 2024, I'm making some changes and pledging to use as much recycled and fair-mined silver as possible! 

I have you in mind: a committed, strong women who practice good every day and want to express their good-nature and good-humoured personality in all colours and tiny representations of the simplest and cutest of things. It could be your beloved bird or that warm pumpkin soup in autumn (yes, I confess I've painted a lot of pumpkins before).

The brand name, carefully selected and pulled from the depths of (well!) my memory, Petit Mignon means little cutie in French and that's what my mum used to call me when I was a kid. By the way, my name is Patrícia! My nickname is French but I'm actually Portuguese!

Now, if you ask me why I do what I do, prepare to slip on a banana peel! There's no inspiring story, no Ulysses and his odyssey, it's just me and an unromantic dilemma after graduating in Fine Arts in Portugal back in 2006: if I kept painting large canvases, I would soon have nowhere to put them and, let's be honest, it's expensive! If I painted small objects, I could easily put them in a box, but - lucky me! - people around me liked them and started buying them.

Then I realised that this was quite nice (!), these are little works of art that people can take with them and that make them smile during the day. What's more, many of them told me that it aroused other people's curiosity and sparked pleasant conversations. So, in the end, that's why I do what I do, i´m in it for the smiles, and the irony of it all is that it's an even more expensive craft than painting canvases (sigh).

I continued to learn as much as I could, enrolling in various short courses in jewellery and even a postgraduate course in Jewellery Design in Portugal. I love painting and incorporating that into my jewellery was a way of paying homage to my passion and, at the same time, feeling closer to people because I knew they were really carrying it with them.

I wish my jewellery could solve everyone's problems, but as disappointing as this lack of a magical object can be, what I can guarantee is that for a moment it will make you smile, even laugh, remember good things and all those warm fuzzy feelings we all like to feel from time to time. Far be it from me to think that an object would make you feel more confident, I know that you already own yourself and you're unapologetically you! If in some way my jewellery allows you to show the world your true colours, I already consider that an honour and a victory

 

The studio

Let's get down to business! In my small studio, I create and produce all the pieces by hand. The glass is cut and painted by hand and fired at between 720º C and 780º C to fix the colours. With a focus on upcycling, I try to draw attention to a material that usually ends up in recycling for the production of industrial products. Recycling, although environmentally friendly, does not eliminate a considerable amount of energy compared to upcycling. Transforming a material of little value into a unique piece of jewellery serves to raise awareness of the use of different materials from what is common in jewellery and to encourage a new mentality of consumption and production of objects with a low environmental impact.

Welcome to Petit Mignon Studio!