The Dorothy Days - Year so far...

Hello everyone,

Can't believe it is nearly March, how have 2 months sped by already?! It has been such a busy year so far so I thought it would be fun to share some of the highlights so far and celebrate with you all some milestones too :).

#1  - 1000 Instagram Followers

So happy to reach this big milestone this month.  Instagram is fast become one of my favourite platforms to use and I am really happy that lots of you have come over and followed me :) thank you! 

Find me on Instagram here

#2 - Sellers Advisory Board

I was selected to be part of the Sellers Advisory Board for Etsy! I am so excited to be part of this and will be flying out to New York for the first meeting in a few weeks time. 

You can find more about the SAB here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/seller-handbook/article/announcing-etsys-seller-advisory-board/34287741664

#3 - New Hobby

One of my new year's resolutions was to take up a new hobby so I decided to take up painting. I have been experimenting with acrylics and then recently started painting in watercolour. 

Finding it really relaxing and enjoyable and it has been fun experimenting with different things to paint and ways of painting.

#4 A New Arrival

The Cradle - Beret Morisot - Musee d'Orsay

This month my family got one bigger! He is beautiful. So exciting especially as we haven't had a new baby in the family for over a decade!


#5 Vienna

Had the most amazing trip to Vienna, it is so beautiful out there and I hope that I will get to return some time in the future. Has to be one of my favourite places I have visited to far.

#6 Getting organised!

#7 A HUGE milestone

This month I reached a HUGE milestone for my little Etsy shop and made my 1000th sale. So exciting! Each and every sale means so much to me and I can still remember the joy of receiving my very first sale (I did do a little happy dance!!) and still get so much join from receiving new sales from across the world. Thank you to everyone who has supported me and my little shop!

#8 Origami Challenge

As well as my painting, I have also started trying to learn how to make origami and set myself the challenge of making one per day. I thought it would be fun to post my makes up on social media so have started the hashtag #TDDOrigami and you can follow along on either Twitter or Instagram 

#9 More vintage

When I first started my shop I sold tags and vintage items and slowly have been making more and more handmade items for the shop which I totally love but am making it my goal this year to add more vintage items too. So far I have added lace bobbins, beautiful vintage brooches, trinket boxes etc and I have been experimenting with my shop photography too!

#10 New Branding

Decided that this year it was time for a little bit of a rebrand in my shop so I now have a new logo and banner and should have some new business cards on the way soon as well!

Exciting stuff!

Thanks for reading

The Dorothy Days Xx

The Dorothy Days - Vintage Advert - Benjamin Moore paints

Hey everyone :),

Hope you have all had a great week. Thank you to everyone who has been tweeting to me and about my shop, I really appreciate it :). Here is another one of my vintage Thursday images. This week I thought I would share with you all another vintage advert as I really enjoy looking at them at the moment. Hope you enjoy it too :)

The advert is from the 1950s and is for Benjamin Moore paints. I love the old car in the advert and it also made me laugh that health and safety would be going crazy about this advert now....none of the children have seatbelts, one child is sat in the boot and all the paint is about to fly out the boot!!

The Dorothy Days Xx

What better way to start a Tuesday....

Hello everyone,

As most people are going to be back to work today I thought we could all do with some cheering up so what better thing to cheer you up with than a Monet's waterlilies. The colours are even more incredible when you are standing next to the real thing.  

Have a great week everyone,

The Dorothy Days Xxx

Big achievement for The Dorothy Days

Hello everyone :),

How are you all ?! Hope that you all had a wonderful weekend. I had a really lazy Sunday but did actually achieve quite a bit on Saturday so had a nice excuse for a proper day off. Saturday night we had a crazy amount of rain and over night it washed away all the snow. Was very strange waking up to green grass and clear roads!

I have also hit a rather big milestone in my shop.....I have finally reached 100 listings!!! Horray horray!!!! My 100th listing was a beautiful set of vintage lace bobbins :). I opened my little Etsy shop one lovely sunny August afternoon and reaching 100 listings has always been one of my biggest goals since opening. Feels wonderful to have finally achieved it and I have a feeling that this year is going to be a good one for my shop :).Reaching my goal of 100 listings has made me reflect back on how far my little shop has come since opening and it is something that I am really proud of :).

My first ever listing in my shop was this little pack of gift tags that I made. I listed them on the 15th of August, the same day as I opened my shop.

and funny enough my first ever sale in my shop was the brown version of these heart gift tags! When I got my first ever sale I was so so happy, such a great feeling. I jumped out of my chair because I was so happy! I still even to this day get a rush every time I make a sale in my shop. Back when I opened and during the first few months of my shop being open I only really had tea cups and gift tags for sale and the shop was very small with just a handful of items for sale at any one time. I didn't have any of my handmade jewellery which is crazy to think now as my jewellery makes up the majority of my shop! I also didn't have things like my twitter account or blog until much later. Really pleased that my shop has changed, evolved and grown so much in the last year and a half and hopefully this year it will continue to do so. Thank you all for your support, I couldn't have done it without it so it really means the world to me and thank you to all my fellow Etsy sellers who I have learnt so much from and who have given such wonderful advice.

Best wishes to you all :)
The Dorothy Days

The Dorothy Days' Feature Friday- Tabbys Vintage Shop

Hello everyone :) ,

First of all, before I start this week's Feature Friday. I just wanted to let you all know that I am thinking of all of you who are reading this from places affected by Hurricane Sandy. I have been watching on the news from here in England and have been really shocked by some of the images I have seen. Thinking of you all.


This week for Feature Friday I am featuring Tina from ....

Tina is from Wisconsin, United States and has been running her Etsy shop for almost a year. The shop is named after Tina's cat Tabby who she said really appreciated a good vintage find!! Tina opened her shop as something to pass the time while being a stay at home mum (mom for my American followers!) She is now a single mum and hopes that her love of vintage can turn from a passion into something that will also pay the bills. Her shop specialises in vintage clothing and accessories including vintage jewellery, scarves and hats. She also stocks lots of difficult to find plus size vintage clothing.

I asked Tina to pick some of her favourite items from her shop at the moment and this is what she picked.....

This incredible 1960's danville loungewear made of quilted fabric. Tina says.... "how can you look at this and not feel happy? It screams "please wear me for a day out, I'm not just lounging" !! "
I couldn't agree more.....I think it is fabulous and I love the paisley motifs.

The second item that Tina chose was this amazing black and white dress with polka dots. Tina explained how this dress is rather special as was handmade and has a label inside the dress saying "especially for you by Mom".....how lovely is that? This little dress must have been made with so much love and thought :)

Please be sure to have a look at Tina's shop by clicking the link HERE ! Her shop is well worth a browse and is a treasure trove of beautiful items.

Hope that you enjoyed this week's Feature Friday :)

The Dorothy Days Xx

Wordless Wednesday- The English Countryside

Hi everyone,

Sorry that my blog has been so quiet recently, I had a few days away on holiday down to Cornwall (which, for those of you who don't know Britain very well, is a beautiful part of Britain right on the coastline). The weather here has been awful and we have all been feeling short changed as it really has not been summer weather but now this week has been the most beautiful week full of blue skies and sunshine. In fact today has been the hottest day of the year so far :) .....summer is FINALLY here!! Being in Cornwall was lovely and I can't believe how lucky we got with the weather. I got back today from my holiday and shall spend tomorrow catching up with my blog, etsy shop, facebook and twitter pages and also my emails so please bare with me, I promise that there shall be some good blog posts coming soon :).

Thanks to everyone who took a look in my shop this week, I sold my first upcycled letter writing set :).

Anyway....back to my not so wordless wednesday.....

The Dorothy Days

Shop updates and earrings earrings earrings!

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and for those of you in the U.K, I hope you enjoyed the sunshine while it lasted! This weekend I visited a friend in Cambridge, it was wonderful to spend a few days away and I always enjoy visiting new places. Cambridge is beautiful and I don't know why I have never visited before! I shall have to make a trip up there again soon :).

This week I shall be preparing for some of the vintage markets and fairs that I will be doing over the summer. I will be busy sorting my stock and putting on labels which is often much more time consuming than it sounds! Then there is also the task of trying to fit it all in the car!!!

I have also been looking into ways to display my items as when my stall gets crowded it can be quite difficult to see some of the smaller items such as my jewellery. At the moment I usually display my earrings and other pieces of jewellery on card in vintage bowls and boxes which looks pretty but isn't always that practical!! I have decided to buy myself an earring display stand to display all my earrings. It is quite tall and square and rotates so looks a little bit like a card stand. It is in an antique copper tone so looks really pretty but is also much more practical as it means more than one person will be able to view my earrings at a time. I can't wait for it to arrive, I shall take some photographs when I get it to show you all :).

There is enough room for 96 pairs of earring so I better get making some more!! I have sold quite a few of my earrings online already and also they have been really popular offline at the craft and vintage fairs I have been going to. At the moment I am selling two styles of earrings (both studs)....
one style is made of fabric

Green polka dot spot earrings which are currently for sale in my shop. click here to view

Pink and Green fabric earrings which were inspired by English Rose colours click here to view

 and the other designs are made from resin.

Such as these summer surfer chick earrings which have been featured on several online surfing magazines click here to view

How cute are these bird earrings ?! click here to view

and here is a photograph of my model wearing a pair (which I then gave to her as a thank you as she loved them so much and she did such a great job modelling them ! )

I really love these designs and was really pleased with how they came out. As my earrings are handmade I like to limit how many I produce. I think this makes them feel more special to own and much more unique if there are only a limited number made. I have a few pairs in my shop at the moment and a few pairs left for taking to my craft show but after that I will not be making any more in this design so if you love them....grab them while you can!

In the next few weeks I shall work on making some new pairs of earrings in a different style to the ones you see on my site at the moment. I want to keep it a surprise what the earrings are going to look like but they will be quite different. I will post a sneek preview on here soon of the new style earrings so you can all be first to see them before they go up on my Etsy site and before they go to my upcoming craft fair. Exciting stuff!!! I can't wait to start making them :) !

Thanks for reading

The Dorothy Days
 (Vintage and Handmade)

Beautiful blues!

I have just been included in this beautiful treasury. The colour is so striking especially when repeated so I thought I would share it with you all :).
The Dorothy Days