Tag: valentines
Valentine’s Fayre in Pictures
The recent Valentine’s Fayre in Dorchester was a great success with over 500 people coming to join the vintage dancing, tea and cake and to enjoy the beautiful gifts and ideas for Valentines Day. We’ve already been asked by loads of people when our next Fayre will be and if we can repeat the Valentine’s one next year! Plans are afoot and more news will be coming soon but in the meantime here are some photos and information about the Valentine’s Fayre traders.
About the Traders and the Fayre
The Valentine’s Fayre owes a huge vote of thanks to Johanna Wolff and her wonderful musicians who co-ordinated and provided the fabulous live music and entertainment together with Dorchester Historical Dancers part of the Dorchester Dance and Ballet Club. Johanna leads a wide range of music, singing and performance groups arranging music especially for events and performing with her musicians and singers.
The Dorchester Historical Dancers agreed to come and give us a glorious display and teach some dances – kindly co-ordinated by Libby Goodchild MBE of Dorchester Dance and Ballet club. The Ballet Club is an incredible longstanding institution within Dorchester helping hundreds of young people and adults learn and perform a huge variety of dance to examination standard or just for fun.
Vintage Clothing
The Valentine’s Fayre was a great place to hunt out some gorgeous vintage clothes and we were lucky enough to have 3 local traders providing a range of clothing and accessories. The Cherry Closet is one of our favourites – Nicki and Laura brought along a great range of clothes, scarves and jewellery from their eclectic collection. More photos on Nicki’s Facebook page here: NICKI’s Pics.
Complementing the Cherry Closet with their range of clothes and shabby chic gifts were Violet Pearl and The Design Collective.
These vintage ladies both run markets at Bridport, Sherborne and Boscombe. Jacqui from Violet Pearl also can be found at Vintage Fair in Yeovil, whilst Sara of the Design collective is one of the founders of the Boscombe vintage markets.
Jewellery, Accessories and Gifts
We had lots of traders offering some gorgeous jewellery and other “essentials” including the adventurous young silversmith Alice Brock , who produces exciting pieces using a variety of techniques such as etching, reticulation, wire work and fusing. Her work is all original and every piece is unique. Alice is 
currently exhibiting some of her jewellery with another of our traders Charlotte from Every Cloud Boutique in Dorchester. Charlotte sells a wide range of ethically produced unique jewellery, hand-made gifts and cards from great local designers. You can find Every Cloud in Napper’s Court just behind Napper’s Mite in Dorchester. Other inspiring jewellery was available from Beau Frippery – gorgeous vintage jewellery supplied by Lindsey and Claire who can be found at Bridport markets. 
Gorgeous handbags were also provided by Maria who is just beginning to sell these beautiful crocheted and sewn bags. Get in touch with us here at Vintage Dorset if you want to contact Maria.
Other unusual gift items were available from the lovely Wendy at Red Brick Glass who makes glorious glass bunting and sweet lighting that would be perfect for weddings, parties or little girls bedrooms! Cat Owen displayed some of her super Raggy Rat rabbits whilst Doug and Madeline exhibited a range of glass, sewn and painted gifts that were gorgeous!
Vintage Teas
Ooops – we nearly forgot to mention that we were there with our lovely vintage teas and cake. Helped by my gorgeous daughter Gemma, Mum, Dad, Sam and the lovely Jenny who all volunteered to help on the day we were rushed off our feet!
Retro at Home and abroad
Huge thanks to Sabine for her lovely fresh and dried flower displays on sale and of course the fabulous Caroline “Rubyrockcake” for her zany retro homewares.
With retro in mind we were also really delighted to welcome Dorset Dubbers to the Fayre with their crazy VW cut-out (bit difficult fitting the real van into the Victorian Hall at the Musuem) and also Laura from the lovely Yummy Mummy parties exhibiting sweet vintage nursery items.
Picture perfect
Thanks to Alaina from AJ Photographic providing wedding photography services and our own Steve Atkins whose prints of Dorset landscapes and our gorgeous tea parties are simply divine.
And finally…
the Romantic Hamper was won by Violet White. We’ve emailed and are waiting for her to collect her prize so please get in touch Violet.
Mad Hatters & Valentines
We’ve been getting all excited about the Valentine’s Fayre in Dorchester next week and of course been thinking about romance in advance of Valentine’s Day. To share the love last Saturday we gave out more than 50 beautiful vintage Valentine’s hearts crafted by the traders who are exhibiting at the museum next Sunday. We thought it would be great fun to also wear some hearty Alice in Wonderland inspired outfits to draw in the crowds and of course to help us find all of the romantic couples and singles we could and remind them about this fun and free event.
Thanks to Mark Smith of Stand Up Dorchester Comedy Club for the gorgeous photo x
Steve couldn’t resist wearing our Mad Hatter’s hat whilst cranking the handle of his latest invention – the rotating Vintage Dorset all-purpose Multi-sign – made from an old iron drill, some wood and a coat hook (very Heath Robinson). Linda was bedecked in a rather fetching home-made Queen of Hearts outfit complete with our gorgeous stained glass heart ear-rings. We usually use these gorgeous little glass hearts for venue-dressing in trees, from ribbons or as wedding favours – but they also make splendid (if a little heavy) ear-rings!
Of course Steve does compare rather favourably with the ultimate mad hatter Johnny Depp – the beard and long hair really helped convince people Steve was Johnny (though Linda says Steve is a much better kisser 😉
In addition to Linda and Steve and fellow vintage enthusiast Maria handing out the hearts, we were also lucky enough to get the incredible Alistair Chisholm, Dorchester’s town crier extraordinaire to shout about the Fayre, give away some hearts and persuade people to come along. Alistair is a wonderful character and great ambassador for the town… check out his ghost walks or contact him to book a Thomas Hardy Explorer tour of local sights.
The Valentine’s Fayre is a free one-day event held at Dorset County Museum on Sunday 13th February. Opening from 10-3pm the event includes, vintage tea and cake, music and dancing including from the Jane Austen Dancers, valentine’s gifts, jewellery, vintage clothes, photography, art, hand made gifts, cards and treats that all say I love you! Entry to the Fayre is free and includes a ticket to win a Romantic Hamper full of goodies!
If you missed out on a free heart on Saturday you can still get one at the Dorset County Museum or by looking out for Johanna Wolff’s musicians in Dorchester this Saturday. If we have any left after that they’ll be given away at the Fayre on Sunday 13th.