The Dorothy Days features Seoul Sold

Hi everyone,

Well it is a another wet, cold and windy Friday here in England, where has summer gone ?! It certainly doesn't feel like it is summer at the moment! I keep being told that July is going to be beautifully sunny but I am not holding up much hope!

This week has been a really busy one and I have been making earrings for both my Etsy site and for the craft fairs which I am going to over the summer. I now have a few pairs up on Etsy so if you want to view them please click here!

This week I am featuring a small Etsy shop which has recently started up and sells lovely vintage clothes. One of the things I love about Etsy is that it connects buyers and sellers from all around the world and this week I am featuring a shop from South Korea.

The shop is called....

and is run by Crystal. Crystal is a Texas girl who married a service member, Rich, and recently moved to Seoul.

Crystal hunting for vintage treasures

Crystal says that she loves Seoul because of its vibrant culture and because it is a city who prides itself on fashion. She says "One aspect of city life in seoul that I adore is the great fashion. With the street-side shops, designer boutiques and local markets there is so much to choose from." Crystal has been searching the city for the best vintage clothing which she then sells on her Etsy site.

Here are some of my favourites from her site

 What isn't there to like about this lovely button up dress?

This swan print shirt would look great with a skirt or with a pair of shorts click here to take a look

and my favourite in Crystal's shop has to be this beautiful floaty dress

 

I hope that you have enjoyed this week's Feature Friday and thank you to everyone who took a look at my new earrings :)

The Dorothy Days

Preview of my new earrings!

Hi everyone,

I promised in my post about my earrings that I would give you guys who are reading my blog the first preview of my new earrings. Well today I have been working hard at my desk making some of the new pairs of earrings for my shop. I am now covered in glue and have bits of card all over the floor but I am pleased with how they look :).

I thought I would show you the very first pair of earrings from the new design of earrings before they go for sale in my Etsy shop and offline at my craft fair which is coming up soon. I am selling them in little white organza bags so they will be nice to give as gifts :).

Here are my first pair....

*Drumroll*.....

What do you all think ? I would love to hear your feedback on them :)

The Dorothy Days

Wordless Wednesday- Look what I found!

Wordless Wednesday Blog Post

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)

Dorothy Days features...Madelena from Brocante Art

Hello everyone :),

Today I am featuring Madalena from BrocanteArt for my Feature Friday feature. Madalena is based in England in the beautiful historic town of Berkhamsted. Her shop is a treasure trove of  vintage and antique haberdashery. Madalena has a background in Art and design and 'enjoys adding a little conceptual twist to [her] styling and photos' so all of her product listings are beautifully photographed and are like art photography in themselves.

She is a collector of haberdashery and sells her surplus on Etsy and also at local fairs. She says 'I find it hard to part with some of my pieces at times' and I can see why, her products are absolutely beautiful! She has her own collection of antique lace and says that she is "truly passionate, sometimes obsessed with vintage and antique haberdashery".

Here are some of my favourite items from her shop....

I love this collection of four antique spools. They are on wooden bobbins and were made by the French manufacturer Dollfus Mieg & Co. Please take a look here

Stunning French Valenciennes lace

This selection of vintage lace would be great for little craft projects.

I wish I had something I could make with this lovely early 20th C French ruffle tape

In other exciting news.....

My Poole Pottery jug has been featured on the Etsy Contest which I wrote about in this blog post. I would really appreciate if you would vote for me in it. You can do so by clicking here and clicking my jug

My Poole Pottery jug which has been featured

Thank you!!!

Have a wonderful weekend

The Dorothy Days (Vintage and Handmade) X

Wordless Wednesday- English Rose

Hi everyone,

I have decided to start up a Wordless Wednesday post which shall be when I post a photograph or series of photographs for you all to enjoy :). I thought it would be a nice new feature of the blog.

Thank you everyone who followed me on twitter this week. I have now reached 340 followers which I am thrilled about and just posted my 500th tweet! If you haven't already done so and would like to follow me on twitter please click the little 't' button in the top right hand corner and it will take you to my twitter page.

Other important news (and then I promise I will be quiet and get on with WORDLESS Wednesday!)  is that Facebook have unfortunately changed their settings again. This means that even if you have liked my facebook page my status updates will not appear in your news feeds unless I pay a small fortune! This is affecting small businesses like myself. So if you would like to still receive facebook updates and my statuses, vintage videos and blog update reminders please hover over the 'like button' and click 'show in news feeds'. Please also pass on the message and support small businesses by clicking to receive my feeds. Thank you !!!

Here is my first Wordless Wednesday post for you all to enjoy:

Hope you enjoy this photograph I have taken

The Dorothy Days

P.S Please remember that all photographs are copyrighted so please do not reuse them or take them from my site. Thank you!

The Great Debate....

Hello everyone,
I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend. I thought it was about time that my blog hosted *drumroll*.......... The Great Debate!

Now you may be wondering what this great debate may be about....politics?! ......no....tea of course!

via

Britain is famed for being a nation who loves a cup of tea (affectionately know as a cuppa!). Although coffee is also popular, tea is still the nation's favourite beverage with 165 million cups of tea being drank each day in Britain! So the question I am asking you this week is what is your favourite kind of tea and how do you like drinking it ?!

via

On the surface this may seem like a simple trivial question but it is in face one of huge complexity (one sugar or two!? how is best to dunk your biscuit without it falling apart ?! milk poured in first or after?!) and one which often results in the most heated debates!


So let me know..... do you go for good ol' builders tea, chai with plenty of biscuits or are you a green tea kind of person?! Do you have milky tea or just a splash?!  Heaps of sugar or couldn't think of anything worse?! and most importantly......which biscuits?!

I went through a stage of being obsessed with Chai tea and it seemed to be all I drank but I am now back to good old fashioned tea with no sugar and just a splash of milk! I have been collecting vintage tea cups for years and my own personal collection is now rather large so I now always drink my tea from a vintage teacup. It makes the tea taste so much better and makes me smile! If I am treating myself I also like to have a good supply of biscuits too!! I have a bit of a sweet tooth for chocolate biscuits and also love shortbread biscuits.

Vintage Meakin Tea set

Would be wonderful to hear from those of you in Britain and those of you outside of Britain as well :). Please leave a comment in the comment section and let me know where you are from and how you have your tea!

The Dorothy Days

Dorothy Days features....a double whammy feature!

Hello everyone :),

Thanks to everyone who left me a comment on my vintage nails feature :) and to everyone who stopped by my blog, facebook page, shop and twitter this week. This week I am very excited as a close family friend of mine shall be getting married this weekend! The last few days has been a whirlwind of flower arranging, dashes to the dry cleaners and sorting out all the last minute things that seem to crop up!! I shall be taking lots of photographs and shall share some of them on my blog later in the week. My more observant readers will notice that I have updated my social media links on the right hand side so you can now visit my shop, twitter page and facebook page in just one click. Really pleased with how they look :) and proud of myself that I managed to code them!

Today is Friday so that means it is Feature Friday. This week I am featuring two very different shops. First up is ....

which is run by Laura from Ohio. Laura sells lots of vintage pretties but my favourite has to be her beautiful vintage shoes which she sells. I thought this week that we would go shoe crazy and feature some lovely vintage shoes as if you are anything like me you will have a bit of a shoe addiction!!!

To kick things off we have these beautiful rock star red shoes! They are great and could either be dressed up or down.

These shoes are totally different from the ones above. These are low healed and much smarter with a little burst of colour. Check them out here

I also love these little shoes which would be perfect for lazing around on the beach or in the garden this summer Take a look here

The second shop I am featuring is 

which is run by Jena Miller Divine. Jena is based in California (oh how that makes me jealous!!) and bakes the most delicious looking biscuits, brownies and other sweet things. As she says " You want yummy goodness? I'm your girl!"

 

 Mmmmmm!!! How delicious do these mint chocolate truffles look?!

These Organic Lavender shortbread biscuits also look amazing

Or how about this amazing Raspberry and chocolate chip loaf. Looks delicious and you could even pretend that it was one you had made earlier!

Thank you for reading about my features this week and I hope that you shall take a little look around their shops, they both have some lovely items and what more could a girl want !? Shoes AND delicious biscuits in one feature!!!

Rachel from The Dorothy Days

Vintage Style Nails!

Hello everyone,

I am feeling rather summer today, the doors and windows are open, the garden deckchairs are out, I have been listening to some summer songs and Boo (my puppy) is running around the garden and has decided the best place in the whole garden to lie in are my flower beds!! I have bought a beautiful new vintage sun dress which I have been wearing today and have decided that I need some nails to match!! I am always jealous of those girls who have beautifully painted nails with little designs on them. I always thought that I would never be able to do those kind of nails are they look too fiddly but today I found a video which shows how to make pretty summer nails with vintage style flowers really easily and without having to have the steadiest hand in the world! I thought I would share it with you all. The colours are really vintage and they have beautiful rose designs on them. The youtube video shows you step by step how to do them.

Hope you enjoy the video.

I would love to hear from anyone who tried them out or anyone who has any other cute designs painted on their nails. Please drop me an email with a photo on thedorothydays@hotmail.co.uk and I shall feature your pretty summer nails in next weeks post as a summer inspiration post.

The Dorothy Days

The Dorothy Days features Sheena from Honey and Lace Designs

Hello again everyone,

Sorry for not posting my second Friday post yesterday, my internet decided to die right in the middle of me posting the two posts!!!  Feature Friday wouldn't be quite the same if it was on a Saturday so lets pretend that it is still Friday!

...........

How exciting to have not one but two posts today!! Today is Feature Friday and this week you are in for a treat as I am featuring Sheena who has a stunningly beautiful shop called Honey and Lace Designs. Sheena is a twenty six year old artist who makes beautiful wedding items.

We had a interview together and here are the results:

 You have a shop full of beautiful handmade items, how did you first get into making handmade items?

My interest in handmade things started when I got married, I was 19 and I wanted my wedding day to be unique and like a fairytale, so I needed to make lots of favors, center pieces and decorations for my wedding.
These of course I handmade with the help of my family and that sparked my interest in handmade items and led to me creating my own Etsy shop.

 

I can see in your shop that the fairytale theme has continued into your own work, which fairytales inspire you?

All of my designs are inspired by my favorite fairy tales and folklore I'm inspired by the classic fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland and Little Red Riding Hood but I also love celtic, norse and greek folklore and mythology.  

Do you have any other inspirations for your work?

  Jane Austen books are some of my favorite romances and I just adore the movie Pride and Prejudice. I love to watch it while creating new pieces for my shop

I see that you use lots of vintage materials, what made you choose to use these?

 I love to use vintage beads, fabric, and lace along with my flowers in my pieces and i will use any excuse i can come up with to put pearls or feathers in my creations.
I love to use Vintage pieces in my work, I feel there are so many lovely things about vintage items, searching for new vintage items is like treasure hunting and i have so much fun doing it and each piece has a story of it's own and adds a beautiful and unique little something to each of my creations.  

What do you do when you are not crafting?

When I'm not selling things on Etsy I'm a chef in training so I use my creativity in my cooking as well and  I love to watch cooking shows and wedding shows on TV.

Here are some of my favourite items from her shop:

 This Pink Blossom Headpiece is so dainty and beautiful. I love the shade of pink used and as Sheena says it would be "perfect for a woodland bride, or fairy costume."

I love this Snow White ring

I think these ice princess clips  are my favourite in Sheena's shop

This floral hair comb would look stunning!

I hope that you have enjoyed this weeks feature and sorry about the internet glitch which meant this was posted a day late. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Thanks again for all your lovely comments and for taking time to read my blog, I am really touched that so many people are actually interested in reading it :)

Rachel from The Dorothy Days

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