Sitting in the Chepstow branch of the Tulip Tree sipping a cup of coffee Julia Randall-Cook is explaining how she got here.

It may seem a strange move - midwife to jeweller - but Julia admits she's always had a fascination for jewellery.

"I love jewellery. I always have. If I'm on holiday I'll always make for the jewellery shops to see what they are selling. I'd also go to antique fairs just to check out the jewellery. Personally, I like big jewellery. I don't go for expensive jewellery myself," Julia says.

"I was with the NHS for 35 years working as a midwife and in the last few years I started designing and making beaded jewellery. I had my colleagues and friends to sell to," she explains.

That's where her jewellery business started. From those small beginnings Julia worked her way up to finally opening the Chepstow shop two years ago. Since then she's branched out and now runs a second Tulip Tree in Monmouth.

"This isn't work," she admits. "I work six days a week in the shops or I am at home checking e-mails or doing paperwork but it is not stressful. It's a pleasure. It started out as a hobby and has ended up being a business - being a midwife was much more stressful," she says.

"We even turn our holidays into business trips now. We make sure we check out what is selling wherever we are. I try to choose pieces for the shop which no-one else is selling locally.

We've got jewellery from Thailand, Miexico, Italy and India, as well as the beaded pieces which I make,"

she says.

Julia's workshop is based in the Chepstow shop, where she has drawers full of beads of all different colours and size just waiting to be crafted into a piece for one of her customers.

Another of Julia's loves led to the name of the shop.

"I used to be a very keen gardener and I love tulip trees, which are a form of magnolia," she says. "I think it is a pretty name so I decided to use it for the business."

2:49pm Friday 4th January 2008

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