Your favourite ceramic doesn’t have to stay broken.
Whether it’s a family heirloom, a treasured gift or your favourite everyday mug, every repair is carried out by hand using traditional Japanese kintsugi techniques, giving broken pieces a second life.
- Handmade in the UK
- Personal quotation
- Secure return shipping
Why repair instead of replace
Every crack tells part of its story.
Most of what arrives at the studio isn’t valuable. It’s the mug someone drank from every morning for twenty years, the bowl that only comes out at Christmas, the vase that was a wedding present. When one of those breaks, buying another one doesn’t help. What’s lost isn’t the object.
Kintsugi takes the opposite approach to an invisible repair. The break is joined with lacquer and finished in metal, so the line where the piece failed stays where you can see it. It comes back changed rather than hidden, and it goes back into use.
Meet Nicole
Hello, I’m Nicole.
Every repair arrives with its own story. Some pieces are family heirlooms, others are wedding gifts or souvenirs collected over many years. My role isn’t simply to repair ceramics, but to preserve the memories attached to them.
I work alone, from a small studio in East London. Every piece is handled by me from the moment it arrives to the moment it’s packed for its return — nothing is sent elsewhere and nothing is rushed.
If I think a piece isn’t worth repairing, or that the finished join will show more than you’d like, I’ll tell you before you post it.
- 500+ Pieces mended
- 15 years At the bench
- 4–8 weeks Typical turnaround
- 12 months Warranty on every repair
The process
How it works
Four steps, from the photograph you send to the piece coming home.
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Upload photos
Complete the quote form with photographs and some information about your ceramic.
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Receive your quote
Nicole reviews the damage and sends a personalised quotation.
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Package & send
Carefully package your ceramic and send it to the studio.
Packaging guide -
Receive your restored piece
Once repaired, your ceramic is carefully packaged and returned ready to be enjoyed again.
Before & after
Recent repairs
A few pieces recently returned to their owners. Photography is added as each repair leaves the studio.
Stoneware tea bowl
Dropped onto a tiled floor and broken into nine pieces. Rebuilt over six weeks.
Everyday mug
A twenty-year-old morning mug with a snapped handle and two body cracks.
Celadon bud vase
Three clean breaks through the neck, no fragments missing.
Wedding platter
A radiating fracture across the base, repaired and returned for display.
Pair of sake cups
Two breaks each, matched so the seams read as a set.
Heirloom vase
A chipped rim with the fragment lost. The missing section was rebuilt before finishing.
In their words
What people say
My mother’s vase shattered during a house move and I kept the pieces in a box for two years. I like it more now than I did before it broke.
I always knew where my tea bowl was and what was happening to it. That mattered more than I expected it to.
It was a wedding present and I thought it was gone. The repair is the first thing people notice now, which is not what I expected at all.
Questions
Before you get in touch
Can every ceramic be repaired?
Most can. Porcelain, stoneware, earthenware and bone china all take a repair well, and so do most glazed pieces.
The harder cases are pieces that have already been glued with epoxy or superglue, heavily crazed glazes, and very fine hairline cracks with no clean edge to work with. None of those are automatically a no — send photographs and I will tell you honestly what I think before you post anything.
How much does a repair cost?
Every repair is priced individually. The three things that move the price are the size of the piece, how many fragments it is in, and whether any of them are missing.
You will have a fixed price by email before any work starts, and there is no charge for the quotation.
How long does a repair usually take?
Four to eight weeks for most pieces, and longer for anything badly shattered. Traditional lacquer cures slowly and each layer has to harden before the next can go on, so the timeline is set by the material rather than by how busy the studio is.
Your quotation includes a realistic date, and I will tell you if anything changes.
Will my repair be food safe?
Traditional urushi lacquer is not certified food safe, so I recommend against eating or drinking directly from a repaired surface.
In practice this rarely matters: a mended piece is well suited to display, dry goods and flowers, and a repair on the outside of a bowl is a different question from one across the inside. I will advise on your specific piece when I quote.
Do I need every broken piece?
It helps, but it is not essential. Missing fragments are rebuilt and filled before the seam is finished, which adds work and a little cost but does not prevent the repair.
Send everything you have, including small chips and anything that looks like dust in the bottom of the box. It is easier to leave a fragment out than to recreate it.
Request a quote
Send a few photographs and some details about your ceramic. You’ll get a personal reply within two working days, with a fixed price and a realistic timeline.
Thank you — your enquiry is on its way.
Nicole will look at your photographs and reply within two working days with a personalised quotation. If you don't hear back, email studio@nicoleskintsugi.com.
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