The "It's Darling!" Fair: Meet the stallholders....tea and cake with Claire Weeks from Random Vintage

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Meet the stallholders....tea and cake with Claire Weeks from Random Vintage

Claire Weeks, from Cardiff is the genius behind “Random Vintage” jewellery range. She is one of our original traders who was with us for the very first fair in July and has two collections of handmade trinkets - Random Vintage & Random Vintage Repeatables – and her own real-life shop.

Reindeer decoration

Hello again Claire. Tell us about your favourite tea and cake.

Well, I love baking cakes and I have to say my favourite is one that I make (slightly egotistical me thinks) - an apple and walnut cake with cream cheese icing and caramel frosting - yum. My favourite tea is Earl Grey and they make a mean pot of Earl Grey in ‘The Plan’ café in Cardiff, which very conveniently is directly opposite our shop.

Gorgeous earrings

Delish! So, let’s hear all about your wonderful work.

I have two jewellery collections, Random Vintage & Random Vintage Repeatables. For the Random Vintage collection I make one-off individual pieces using worn and loved vintage items such as brooches, charms, rosarys, religious relics, old lockets and earrings, I mix these with beautiful precious and semi-precious stones, vintage beads and rhinestones to make unique statement pieces. The Random Vintage Repeatables collection uses a mixture of new 'vintage' style items to create fun, quirky, wearable and affordable pieces.

I also make vintage style decorations and headbands.

Beautiful birds

When did you start your business?

Random Vintage started about two and a half years ago. It started as a hobby but now it’s pretty much full time as three friends and I have opened a shop in the centre of Cardiff, called A Vintage Affair and now I’m constantly making to keep up with the sales in the shop and the website. I’m either making in the shop or making at home, it’s pretty full on at the moment, hence the reason for only doing one Christmas Fair, and it’s going to be a good one!

Time please

Where does your inspiration come from?

My initial inspiration came from a box of my grandmother’s old broken costume jewellery. It seemed such a shame to waste them and chuck them away, so I had the idea of making new pieces out of the old damaged jewellery as I wanted to bring them back to life in a modern more wearable style. . The more Random Vintage has developed the more passionate I’ve become about recycling and re-using unwanted or unloved vintage items and giving them a new lease of life.

I visit a lot of antiques fairs and flea markets looking for vintage pieces to incorporate into my work, these shows can be very inspiring, seeing the different colour combinations, different textures, and seeing how jewellery styles have changed over time. I also look at old books and fairy stories and try to create pieces with a theme in mind.

Necklace

Why did you want to be part of “It’s darling!”?

I was lucky enough to have a stall at ‘It’s Darling’ in July and had a brilliant time, Cath and Becky had done such a brilliant job! I had a great day and met lots of lovely people (customers and stallholders) , the selection of stands was eclectic with beautiful products and fab displays, so I can’t wait for the Christmas fair as I plan to get a good bit of Christmas shopping done!

Bracelets

Will you be doing anything special with your stall?

For the stall I’m planning a winter wonderland theme (though on a very small scale) with pewters and whites, some greenery and maybe even a bit of snow. I’ve also got some new decorations that I’m making up and some quirky Christmas wreaths.

Describe your perfect Christmas day...

An ideal Christmas day would be at home with my family, eating and drinking and being very merry whilst wearing my ‘new’ black lace and pink satin 1950’s prom dress, gorgeous.

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without . . . a chocolate orange