Find The Dorothy Days on Pinterest

Did you know I also have a Pinterest account?

My favourite board at the moment is my wedding board, if you pin please come and take a look at my Pinterest account and particularly my wedding board, it has some beautiful items and ideas on there for those of you who are planning their big day. I am rather addicted to Pinterest so have been adding new pins most days.

Please come and take a look!

Link to my Pinterest account: https://www.pinterest.com/thedorothydays/

Link to my Wedding Board: https://www.pinterest.com/thedorothydays/the-dorothy-days-weddings/

Little update!

Hello everyone :) 

Can't believe it is March already.....time has just flown by! So excited about Spring. The flowers are blooming and there are days where the weather is much milder and the sun shines! Rather exciting. I have been visiting London quite regularly which has been wonderful, I love being over there for a few days and have been visiting lots of exhibitions and art galleries. I went to the V&A last week and to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery all of which were fantastic. This weekend I also went to the Makers Boutique in Brighton which was a craft fair for local sellers with lots of lovely jewellery, handmade cards, ceramics, art etc. If you haven't been already and live in the Brighton area it is really worth going to. There were some beautiful stalls and lots of very talented people. They even have a little tea room at the back which I stopped at with my friends and had some tea and cake! 

My shop has been doing well and I have had quite a lot of orders recently (thanks so much to everyone who has ordered from me) so have been busy making new items for my shop, packaging up orders and taking lots of trips to the post office!! I am also planning on doing some craft fairs during the summer months. I managed to hit my target of getting 100 items listed which gave me a huge sense of achievement. My next goal is to reach 100 sales :). I am currently on 92 sales so am nearly there, going to be a enormous milestone for me and my shop so I am really excited. Thank you everyone who has been buying for me and supporting my little business.

The Dorothy Days Xx

Quote of the Week- C.S Lewis

Hello everyone and happy Monday :)

Thought I would kick the week off with another inspirational quote. Thank you everyone who has shared their favourite quotes in the comment section below, it has been lovely to hear all your comments and discover some new quotes. Please keep them coming, I shall feature the best ones on my blog as the quote of the week.

This week the quote was chosen by Catalin from Asian Rose Designs. (Thank you!!!)
I really love this quote and thought it was a lovely positive quote to get this week started and to be uplifting as the weather has been rather gloomy here in the UK.


You are never too old to set another goal or dream another dream." C.S. Lewis

What is your favourite quote?

Have a great week :) ! 
The Dorothy Days Xx 

Things my followers love about where they live

Hello everyone,

I posted a little while ago about my favourite things about living in the English countryside and asked to hear what you guys love about where you are from. I had some wonderful responses from lots of different places around the world, was really lovely to read all the responses. Thanks so much for sharing and I thought I would share a few here:

Zoe from stone tree jewelry said:
I'm in a rather rural part of the United States in the gorgeous state of Maine. It's fall foliage season here and we had our first wood fire weeks ago. Not for everyone, but I love it! :)

One of my favourite things about Autumn is coming inside slighty chilly and warming up infront of a lovely log fire so I was so glad that Zoe posted this as some of the things she loves most about where she lives.


Grace left me this lovely reply:

I live in a rural part of California's Gold Country and we are enjoying Indian Summer, still in the 90's here this week and tomorrow is October! I love this time of year, just before the Fall season kicks in. The trees are already turning and things are settling in, with the squirrels bustling about, the birds are especially happy and enjoying the birdbath daily. It is fun to watch them take turns. Mama deer and 2 of her triplets came through the yard last evening, and I am sure #3 was nearby.
The weather is mild enough that my hubby and I enjoy our back porch in the evenings after sundown.
I enjoy hearing about your country life too - Life is Good!

Can't believe its still in the 90s over there!!! WOW!! The last few days weeks here in the U.K have been rain, rain and more rain and quite cold so I am really jealous! Having a deer family visit  must be amazing, we do have deer up the back of the garden which leads into the woods but they very rarely venture down close enough to the house for me to get a good look. I usually see them while driving home at night along the country roads.

Jayne from handmadecuties said:

 Hmmm...I loved where I used to live and I'm settled where I live now. Sleeping with the windows wide open, the sound of bull frogs at night, the cool morning air are the things I miss most about my old home.

These are the things that I like most about where I now live...
*I can make a quick trip to the grocery store a couple minutes away.
*Although traffic is bad, I get to cut off the freeway and reach my home without getting stuck in the really horrendous traffic.
*I, at least, have a little fenced in back yard for my dog to run around.
*The inside of our home has a great set-up with lots of space.
*I have a garden.

I think I want to move now...Can I come and live with you?

Living more in town must have its perks as well, I am slightly less rural now than I used to be but it used to be a 24 mile round trip just to get to the supermarket which was a bit of a nightmare if you forgot anything!!!

I will feature the rest of the replies in my next blog post and if anyone else would like to add what they love about where they live I would love to hear from you too :), please leave me a message in the comment section below and let me know where you live and why you love it :)

Thanks again for all my lovely comments, I really love reading them and so interesting to hear about where you all come from. Makes me want to do loads of travelling and see all these different places!

Have a great weekend

The Dorothy Days Xx

The Dorothy Days features... Fancy Dodo

Hi everyone :),

Today is Friday so that means.......FEATURE FRIDAY :) ....Horray!!

This week I am really excited to be featuring Lora from

Lora is originally from Bostom but has spent her first year away from home this year living in L.A. Her Etsy shop is called Fancy Dodo and she started selling under that name from last year. The common thread with her items is that she takes thing that would otherwise be extinct and repurposes them to be fancy again. Hence the name, Fancy Dodo. Creativity must run in the blood as Lora is mostly inspired by her Nana who gracefully multitasked on many creative projects - making jam, painting, sewing costumes and holiday dresses for her grandchildren, and putting on family dinners for 30.

Lora sells a range of items but her friends fell in love with her earrings so they have become her primary product. She started collaging comic and magazine images onto bottle caps in college because they were the two things which she had in abundance!

I love seeing items repurposed so Lora's bottle cap earrings really caught my eye when I visited her shop. Here are some of my favourites

 How cute are these ? Taken from an 80s film

I also love these ones which have such french summer colours :)

Lora is doing her first craft fair at the end of the month which she has been busy making items for :). I think Lora will do really well as she has such lovely and quirky items :). She says that after she finishes the craft fair her shop will be restocked so keep checking back to see lots of new items!

Please be sure to take a look at Lora's shop.

Hope you all enjoyed this week's feature

Have a wonderful weekend

The Dorothy Days X

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)

A Friday post- Part 1!

Hello everyone,

Pinch punch first of the month!!! I can't believe that it is the 1st of June already but I am so excited to be enjoying the English summertime. Tonight I am having another BBQ with friends, there is nothing like BBQed food and drinks on a beautiful summers evening. I can't wait.

I feel like I have had a really productive week this week. On Sunday of last week I attended the Vintage Market in Bath at which I have a regular pitch. It is hosted in a beautiful old train station which is a stunning setting to sell vintage. The last train ran here in 1971 when it was owned by Midland railways. The railway is now long gone but the beautiful architecture remains.

It was a scorching hot day so I was rather glad that our pitch was in the cooler side of the train station! The day started at 5am as I live quite far away from Bath and it takes a while to unwrap all my tea cups and vintage glass! The early start was worth it, the stall looked really pretty and it was great to show off some of my new items. I even did a Jubilee style tea party table! Met some wonderful new people and also saw some old faces who are regulars at the market which is always lovely. The market has some beautiful things for sale and I had to resist temptation to buy it all! The lady next door to me was selling the most beautiful vintage clothes which I really had to resist trying them all on!

Here is a photo of the station to show you all what it is like for those of you who have never been. It is so beautiful and such a perfect setting for this event. It makes the art historian in side of me smile!

At the end you can see the famous Bath stone work on the building. via

 Here is the setting for the vintage market, isn't it such a beautiful location ? It makes me smile every time I go. Via

Other news for this week is that I reached 300 followers on Twitter which I am thrilled about. It is really heart warming that so many people want to hear about my shop so thank you for everyone who has followed me. I really appreciate it. I was so excited to reach 300 followers that I checked who was my 300th followers and guess what ?!.....it turns out my 300th follower is an Otter!!! You can take at look at his website here. It is really good and I have just spent ages playing dress otter!

To save this post being the longest post in history I shall start a new one for this week's Feature Friday so you can have TWO blog posts for today.....oh how I spoil you all!!!

The Dorothy Days X

My first blog feature- With Natalia from Uncommonplace

Hi everyone,
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend and to those of you who are reading from the U.S.A, happy mothers day!  Here in the U.K we have had a beautifully sunny weekend and it is starting to really feel like summer. There is a huge amount of tulips which have sprung up just outside where I live and look absolutely beautiful. I went out with my camera to capture them and loved them so much it has become my new facebook background. Please click here to take a look.

As you know, I normally feature other Etsy sellers on my blog but this week I thought I would mix things up and interview Natalia from one of my favourite blogs to read, uncommon place.
Natalia is a 22 year old blogger from Idaho. Her blog is lovely to read and I especially enjoy the wedding features she does every wednesday.
Here is our interview:

What was the inspiration behind uncommonplace?
I have been blogging off and on for the last few years and Uncommonplace is actually my third blog. However, I was never content with the direction the other ones were going in and was never very inspired to write. Finally, I decided to start fresh and knew that eventually I wanted to start my own business as well. So I searched for a name that would accomodate both well, since they would be very connected. I also have always wanted just to share life and everything that inspires me. Uncommonplace encompasses all of that and will hopefully grow to bigger and better things.

Where do you see yourself and your blog in a few years time?
Honestly, I have no idea. And that is what makes it so exciting! I hope that my blog will not only give me a way of connecting with like-minded people, but also will be an inspiration to others wishing to follow their dreams. I would love for my Etsy shop (opening early next month) to still be going and thriving. Also, I am slowly trying to get my foot in the door to become an interior decorator and event planner, something that I have always had an interest in, and would love to be doing that full time! In my personal life, I have been married for two years, so I am hoping that within the next few years, we might decide to have children and enrich our lives in that way. :)

What do you hope that your readers will take away from reading your blog ?
I really just want my readers to be inspired. Not necessarily by me, I'm nothing spectacular. But mainly by the things I share. If no one is benefitting from your blog, then what is the point of even writing?

I see that you have been working on some things for your Etsy store, can you give us any more hints to what might be in store when you launch your shop?
Yes! I am so excited about this! It has been a long time coming and is finally becoming a reality. Because I do want to become an interior decorator and event planner, I thought that wedding and home accessories would be a fun and appropriate thing to sell in my shop. I have a few basic designs sketched out and have been working hard to make them a reality. I will be featuring bride and groom chair banners, word buntings, embroidery hoop art, throw pillows, and other similar things. Most will be either embroidered or will feature applique, because those things are just so fun!

How do you get yourself in the mood for creating? and in a creative mindset?
This is actually one of my biggest challenges! With a busy schedule, when I have free time, I find myself wanting to catch up on television shows or something like that. One of my biggest motivations to create is feedback from others. This may sound very self-centered, but when someone leaves a positive comment on my blog, it really inspires me to write better content. Or when someone I know tells me that they are excited for my Etsy shop to open, it forces me to be more dedicated to it. A few other things that really put me in a creative mindset are listening to music, looking up some inspiration on Pinterest or other blogs, and mixing and matching fabrics to come up with new ideas.

What do you feel your greatest skill is ?
At least on my blog, I feel that my greatest "skill" (if you can even call it that) is just being real. I don't claim to be an expert in anything. I am a self-taught sewer and embroiderer and am definitely still learning when it comes to blogging and business ownership. I just want to come along side people and encourage them in the amazing ways that I have been encouraged and share life in the process.

If you could have one super power what would it be ?

I have no idea if this qualifies as a super power or not, but I would love to have super-productivity! Haha! I am such a terrible procrastinator and never get as much done as I want/need to. So if I could be ridiculously quick and efficient, I would probably be in a much better place. :)

Please be sure to take a look at Natalia's blog.It is really enjoyable to read and her new shop when it is launched is going to be great.
Hope you enjoyed this feature and thank you all for the lovely comments which have been left on my blog this week, I have really enjoyed reading them.

The Dorothy Days Xxx