Style Saturday - Hexagon Home

Hello everyone,

Happy Saturday! On Saturdays I post a style post with either a fashion post or a styling your home post.

Today I thought I would share with you all this collection called Hexagon Home which I love as an interior design idea. I particularly like the mix of white, grey and blue as the colour palette and the combination of minimalist and industrial with the use of concrete as a material. The little flashes of turquoise blue seem to work perfectly to add some colour splashes to this look without detracting from the clean lines and minimalist feel.

The Dorothy Days Xx

Back to School on Etsy - 5 products I love

Hi everyone,

Whenever I go on Etsy to check things in my shop I can't help but have a browse of other people's shops. I can get lost just browsing for hours on end, there are so many beautiful items on there!

Today I thought I would share with you all my top 5 back to school items that I have found on Etsy because I know lots of you will be heading back to school, college, university etc soon. Please take a look at these shops. Each shop is independent and is an artist or crafter who are selling their wares in their own individual shop. I have provided links below each item for where you can find it on Etsy.

5 back to school items I am loving this week...

#1

Perfectly simple but very beautiful, this pencil organiser/ desk tidy was made by a shop named Less and More which is based in Austria

#2

Just incase you need some reminding.... white gentle reminder pencils. These pencils have been handmade by AmandaCatherineDes

#3

I love this grown up lunch box by Chris Hughes from Artifact Bag Co. It is available in different colours too!

#4

Stay organised by remain stylish with these hand-painted Mason Jar desk tidys. Great for organising pens, pencils etc and available in lots of different colour combinations. I particularly liked this combination as it is very vintage looking

#5

Get organised! You would never miss an appointment, meeting, class etc with this reusable wipe clean wall decal

The Dorothy Days Xx

Handmade rustic style tags by The Dorothy Days

Hello everyone,

Happy Tuesday! Did you all have a good bank holiday? Did anyone get up to anything nice? I spent most of mine crafting so today I thought I would share with you all some new tag designs which I have been adding to my shop over the bank holiday.

My tags have been really popular for wedding recently so I have been doing lots of big orders which is always exciting! People have also been buying my tags are product labels for their hand crafted items. I take custom order requests and can make tags in any quantity.

Here are just two new designs which are now in stock in my shop......

Red 'routemaster' London Bus tags by The Dorothy Days

Needle and Thread tags. Perfect for crafters to use as product labels/ price labels

To see all my different designs Please click HERE

The Dorothy Days X

Quote of the Week - Pablo Picasso

Hello everyone,

Happy Monday! Today my quote of the week is by artist Pablo Picasso. I hope you all have a great week.

The Dorothy Days Xx

iPhone case review and outfit selection

Hello everyone,

Really excited to share this blog post with you and do something a little different on my blog! Three Mobile kindly provided me with a complementary iPhone cover for me to match up to an outfit of my choice. I thought it sounded fun and I have been really excited to receive it through the post and see what I think of it and give you my honest opinion here.

First impressions.... well I was really in need of a new iPhone cover so was super excited to receive this one through the post. I wasn't quite sure what to expect but have to say I am really pleased with the case and it is really pretty. As you probably gather from my blog, I really like floral prints and vintage or vintage inspired items so this case was just perfect for me!

iPhone Case provided by Three

Outfit Choice...

The pattern and colour of this case means that it goes with most outfits so I had fun trying to decide which outfit to choose to pair it up with and in the end just couldn't decide so I have put together two different outfits that this would go with!


Outfit Number #1

This summer I am really loving jumpsuits. They are stylish, chic and you can dress them up or down very easily. Here a jumpsuit has been 'dressed up' with a pair of gorgeous slingback heels, blazer, big sunglasses (channel your inner Audrey Hepburn!) and of course red lipstick! The case would really complete this outfit. The bold pattern of the case would look great against the patternless outfit and the blue and pink combination add a different edge to this giving it more of a fun, summery feel while remaining very chic!

Theory white blazer
£270 - farfetch.com

Forever New jumpsuit
£45 - forevernew.com.au

Manolo blahnik slingback
£500 - neimanmarcus.com

MICHAEL Michael Kors leather messenger bag
£205 - farfetch.com

CÉLINE black sunglasses
£315 - lindelepalais.com

Outfit Number #2

In total contrast to the outfit above, this phone case would also go with a casual style outfit. This outfit has been modelled by my beautiful model, Liberty. She wears vintage blue patterned shorts, a white crop top from Asos, a necklace bought from a antiques fair, Betsey Johnson vintage style sunglasses and dip dyed pink hair which goes perfectly with the pink of the roses!! This look would be ideal for a festival this summer.

Hope you have enjoyed reading this blog post, I really enjoyed writing it and hope to bring you some more fashion and outfit style posts soon!

Please let me know in the comment section below which outfit you prefer and check out Three!

The Dorothy Days Xx

Tate After Dark - Tate Britain London

Hello everyone,

Haven't written an art related blog post in such a long time and I know lots of you said that you enjoy them so I thought I would tell you today about a fantastic project run by Tate called After Dark. Late at night for 5 nights the general public can watch live as other members of the public drive 4 robots around the Tate Britain gallery while listening to a live commentary by artists, lecturers, educators and critics. The commentary talks about the paintings the public are viewing through the robots and covers 500 years of British art.

It is fascinating to see these art works in a different light and rather novel way! I have seen art works I know and love and seen and learnt a little about lots of works I am unfamiliar with. You can apply to drive a robot and unfortunately I was unsuccessful but it was still fun watching others drive them around while the live commentary was running. 

Here are some screen shots from After Dark 

As you can see from these screen shots, people from all around the world requested to drive a robot around the Tate.

Robot 4 showing Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, even more haunting in this lighting and this time at night.

Some of the 'drivers' wanted to look at the building itself, some seemed to 'wander' around the Tate looking at lots of different art works until they stumbled upon something which interested them and others seemed to know which works they wanted to see and headed straight for them.

Navigating through the Tate with artworks emerging through the darkness was a unique experience. 

One robot capturing another robot! They were staring each other for a while in some kind of robot lust until one decided to block the other one in for some time!

Verdict - Yes it is a gimmick, the microphones are sometimes a bit muffled and you can't always see the works too clearly. But, it is fun and will hopefully bring British art to a wider audience, engage new audiences outside the typical gallery-goer and perhaps spark an interest in art with someone who might not have visited a gallery otherwise so I think it is fantastic! The commentary was very informative and you get to learn a little about a huge range of artworks in a short period of time. It is a wonderful experience to feel as if you have snuck into the Tate after dark and was at times eery and at other times rather magical.

Mint and Rose

A kitchen inspired by my favourite colour combination at the moment; mint and rose.

My favourite part(s) of the collection: The teapot is great, who wouldn't want to brew a cup of tea from this?! I also adore the industrial style lighting especially with the retro pink

Black and Blum - Box Appetit lunch box review

Hey everyone,

So this week I am getting all excited about........A LUNCH BOX! Yes, you read right...a lunch box! This week I finally got the lunch box I have been hankering after for some time. This brings back memories of being a child and feeling like you had the weight of the world on your shoulders trying to find and decide on the perfect lunch box for returning to school in September. What would your friends think? was it cool? would you be the only person with this lunch box and that before you even opened it and compared what you had in your lunch box! For many years my mum did not seem to realise quite the importance of the lunch box to school life, general popularity and how cool (or not) was I considered and refused to buy us new lunch boxes stating that an ice-cream tub "does it just as well".Year after year I would have my ice-cream/ lunch box until one year she allowed us to have a proper lunch box, it was sheer delight!

My school days are long gone and never again did I think I would get so excited about a lunch box until I got my hands on my Black and Blum box appetit lunch box! I should add here that I have not been approached by Black and Blum to review this product or anything like that. This is totally my own post because I really am that excited about a lunch box!

Anyway, back to it...

Black and Blum was set up by two friends; Dan Black and Martin Blum (see where they got the name for the company?!) They joined forces in 1998 and are based in London. They are a design consultancy but also decided to design their own range of products

"We are driven by the opportunity to give each design its own unique character and soul. Our brief is to create functional products that will charm and entertain." - Black and Blum

Here is Black and Blum's lunch range and my lunch box is the one at the back in the centre and it is what they call 'box appetit'

This is my lunch box. I chose the aqua and orange combination which is shown in this image. The seal itself on the box is what is the aqua colour. There is then a reusable orange fork and a handy place to slot your fork on the outside of the box, finally I won't have to chose between loosing my fork somewhere in my bag or opening up my lunch box to find my fork covered in the entire contents! It will also hold chopsticks (not included)

10 things I like the Black and Blum lunch box....

1) The colours

The photo shows the colour range. The colours look much more vibrant in person. I picked the aqua and orange lunch box for myself and the pink and blue for my sister as a gift.


2) That they are attractive looking and stylish without you having to sacrifice practicality (there is no point having a pretty but leaking lunch box. Been there, done that!)

3) The graphics on the packaging and the packaging itself. Its made from unbleached cardboard and has lovely graphics showing you how to use it. I am a bit of a sucker for a cool packaging graphic! It also have the wording in German and French so I can also pretend I am cool Berliner or Parisian!

4) They have solved the catch 22 of messy fork vs lost fork and they have included the fork too

5) The sauce pot - this is so useful! How many times have I had salad with dressing and opened it at lunch to find it is a sludgy disgusting mess as the dressing makes the salad too wet?! It also has a sauce 'dish' on the reverse of the lid to use to dip into

This is an image of the smaller Bento Box but you can see the sauce pot and the sauce dish.

6) It is freezable and microwavable (it has a little steam hole)

7) It has a compartment to store something else in and this comes out really easily.

8) Super easy to clean and can go in the dishwasher (hooray!)

9) BPA free

10) It has other items in the range with you could add to it such as the Bento Box

I love pretty much everything about it. If there was room for improvement I would perhaps like more colour options and for it to come with chopsticks too

Hope you enjoyed my review of the Black and Blum lunch box. Thanks for reading.
If you would like to find out more about their work please see their website Black and Blum

The Dorothy Days X

Quote of the week - Wordsworth

M-I-N-I-M-A-L-I-S-T

Sometimes less is more so this week I am bringing you some minimalist style inspiration which is all about understated chic. This minimalist outfit inspiration uses geometric shapes, black and white and non-fussy, well cut items of clothing.

My favourite thing about this outfit? The necklace, it makes the outfit and emphasises all the geometric lines of the top

Simplicity of the Lines by sofiaputina featuring a pastel green dress

Making me smile this week - Sweet Brown - Ain't nobody got time for that

Hello everyone,

Well the weather has been cold and miserable with hurricane Bertha so today I thought I would share with you all something that keeps making me smile this week.

I know this clip is super old but it is still as hilarious as the very first time I watched it! If you haven't already seen it, please watch, I am sure it will make you smile too. If you have already watched it, go on....watch it again....you know you want to!

I don't want to give anything away but the video is an interview with Sweet Brown who describes how she escaped from an apartment fire. The circumstances are sad but her interview is hilarious!

I also read Alexandra Thomas' update on Sweet Brown and found that from her fame from the youtube video Sweet Brown has not only had success with interviews and voice overs for advertising but also she is now setting up her own business selling BBQ sauce and have her own reality show.

Hope this made you smile too!

The Dorothy Days X

Memories of my trip to Berlin

Hi everyone,

I thought today I would share with you all a photograph of mine from my trip to Berlin. Berlin has to be one of my favourite places to visit so I jumped at the chance to go back this summer and wasn't disappointed! My trip to Berlin was a rather relaxed one. It was great to take some time out to relax in the park, read a book, go for ice creams (why oh why do we not do ice-cream like they do over there), wander around with no set route or plan etc.

Here is one of my holiday snaps I took after wandering through Berlin. I love that the Berliners are so big on cycling. There are bicycles everywhere and everyone seems to cycle around the city. What a perfect way to get around!

Quote of the week: Coco Chanel

Parisian Chic - Style guide by The Dorothy Days

Still can't believe that this time last week I was in beautiful, sunny Paris. I am missing it lots and hope to be back soon. I thought this week I would do a Parisian themed style feature so here is my style guide for sightseeing in Paris.

Paris Sightseeing; WHAT TO WEAR

Black top with pleated sleeves to stay cool in the heat but is also more stylish than a tank top.

Go bold with print for the skirt (and you could even go bold with colour here too)

Brown bag - don't go tempted to take too big a bag or you will have to lug it around all day. Instead take something which is large enough for everything you need and has flexibility in how you wear it. I love that this one can be turned into a satchel, stylish but also practical and keeps all your things safe if you are travelling on the metro or in crowded areas.

Flats for the day time for when you are seeing the sights, maybe a pair of brown leather sandals  and then dress this outfit up and transform it into an evening outfit with some black platforms and accessories with some bling!

My Big Birthday Giveaway!

Hello everyone,

Very exciting news, a week today The Dorothy Days will turn 3 years old! Can't believe time has flown by so quickly and that the shop has reached another big milestone. To celebrate I thought I would hold a big birthday giveaway with multiple prizes to be won from my shop.

So what are the prizes?!

*Drumroll*

Prize One:
Set of two handmade heart hair slides/ bobby pins by The Dorothy Days in pink. The hair slides are wooden on silver slides. Worth £5

Prize Two:

Twenty (20) handmade Dachshund tags each individually hand stamped, perfect for a dog lover! Worth £5.20

Prize Three:

Vintage style bird cage necklace handmade by The Dorothy Days. Worth £7

Prize Four:

Twenty handmade teapot tags perfect for a tea party! Each tag is individually handmade. Worth £5.20

Prize Five:

Handmade enamel apple necklace on a fine silver plated chain. Worth £5

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A busy few weeks....

Hello everyone,

Wow, what a busy few weeks. I was off to a big fair, then went away to Berlin and then was taken on a surprise trip to Paris! It has been a wonderful few weeks and I have loved every moment of it.

Thanks to everyone who has messaged me while being away and to everyone who has been asking when I will reopen the shop. I opened The Dorothy Days this afternoon again so please feel free to head over to Etsy and have a browse!

The Dorothy Days

Quote of the week - Week 10 - C.S Lewis