Gifts for Him from Dorset Team Christmas Fair Stallholders

Hi everyone,

Very excited that it is less that 2 weeks to go until the Dorset Team Christmas Fair 2016 and also just over 1 month until Christmas!

I always find my boyfriend really difficult to buy presents for. He loves films and music but if there is something he wants to listen to or watch he will normally buy it as quickly as he can when it is released. He is quite difficult to buy clothes for, doesn't like stereotypically 'man stuff' etc so aside from buying him gin or packs of socks (!!) I struggle for inspiration with products on the high street so normally try instead to get him something really different from Etsy.

I have managed to buy some really lovely and unique gifts from there including a handmade leather bag last Christmas and an architecture drawing for his birthday.

I am putting together this Gifts for Him gift guide to give inspiration for anyone else who struggles to know what to buy for the man in their life! All of the following sellers have online shops which I will link but if you are local to Dorset, you can also come along on the 3rd December to browse their stalls at the Dorset Team Christmas Fair.


1) Map print cushion

I love this map print cushion by Bahru Boutique. Perfect for those of you who have wanderlust!


2) Embroidered hoop art

A modern twist on a vintage sampler. This embroidery hoop is a great way to easily add interest to a room. Find it HERE in Studio Pickles.

3) Art Print

Limited edition Giclée print of 'The Needles', created by Maxine Walter.

4) Notebook

For notes, doodles, ideas, drawings and more...! Notepad by Gemma Bullen Designs 

5) Bike Card

For guys who love cycling...(or just cool cards!). This fixy bike card is by Dorset artist Sarah Lovell 

Thanks for reading and hope to see some of you at the Dorset Team Christmas Fair this year!

Gift Guide - Gifts for women from the Dorset Etsy Team

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend so far.

Now that November is here I know that lots of you are starting to do your Christmas shopping so I have decided to put together a series of gift guides to help you find the perfect gift. Where better to look for amazing sellers for my blog post than my local Etsy team, the Dorset Team?!

I love buying from independent sellers and even more so when they are local sellers too!

All of these sellers will be exhibiting their work at the Dorset Team Christmas Fair this year. I am heading there to do my Christmas shopping so if you are local please do come along and if you are not, please check out these Etsy sellers' amazing Etsy shops to purchase online.

Lucy from The Cat in the Shoe makes the most incredible dolls.

They are all mini works of art. Lucy's shop is hugely popular so she releases her dolls in batches and they often sell out within a few hours.

Top tip: Follow Lucy on social media by searching The Cat in the Shoe to see when she will be releasing the next batch of beautiful dolls.

Find Lucy's Etsy shop at https://www.etsy.com/shop/thecatintheshoe

If you are local to Dorset, Lucy will also be bringing her dolls along to the Dorset Team Christmas Fair in Wimborne on the 5th December. This provides a rare opportunity to see a large range of Lucy's dolls and purchase dolls that are super hard to get your hands on online!

Know someone who loves items from days gone by?!

This art deco style hair comb would add a touch of vintage glamour to an outfit.


Find Amy's Etsy shop at https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/DaydreamBridal

or visit her stall at the Christmas Fair in Dorset

Next up is this beautiful embroidery hoop art work by Natalie and Jo from Studio Pickles.

These best friends from Dorset have a superb eye for colour and always have an eye catching stall.

This piece would make a fantastic gift for someone who is difficult to buy as they have everything....I am pretty sure they won't have an embroidered button art hoop in their collection ;) !

Find their Etsy shop Studio Pickles here https://www.etsy.com/shop/studiopickles or come and have a browse at their stall at the Christmas Fair if you are local

This beautiful faux opal changes colour with the light so if you know someone who likes their sparkle this would make a fantastic gift!

The ring was made by Katherine from Wildkat Jewellery who is based in Bournemouth, Dorset.

Katherine also makes beautiful wrap bracelets and her shop is well worth a browse!

You can find Katherine's Etsy shop or come and meet Katherine in person and browse her full range by coming to the Dorset Team Christmas Fair in Wimborne on the 5th December

Wildkat Jewellery

Hope you enjoyed this gift guide and it has given you some gift ideas for those who are a little more tricky to buy for! Please do take a browse in the shops of these amazing makers and hope to see some of you at the Dorset Team Christmas Fair! 

Thanks for reading

The Dorothy Days Xx

Dorset Team Christmas Fair in Wimborne - Part of the Etsy Made Local events

Hi everyone,

I know I have quite a lot of local readers *waves to you all* so I wanted to share with you all a fantastic event which is happening this December.

After the success of last year's Christmas Fair the Dorset Team are returning to Wimborne for their annual Christmas Fair.

The fair is being officially supported by Etsy and will feature 70+ local designers, makers, vintage sellers and craft supply sellers. This is the perfect place to pick up a unique gift that you won't find on the highstreet or beautiful crafting supplies to make your own Christmas gifts (I have already got my eye on a few things!).

The fair has some really great sellers with high quality products and there is something for every taste and budget.

Entry to the fair is FREE

Please put the date in your diary or, even better, head over to the Facebook Event Page  and click 'going' or 'maybe' and Facebook will remind you that the event is on nearer the time.

I am really looking forwards to the event and doing my Christmas shopping from local makers and sellers!

The Dorothy Days Xx

Event Page for the Fair: https://www.facebook.com/events/866031100155674/

Etsy Captain's Summit in Amsterdam 2015 - 10 things I learnt from the summit and being in Amsterdam

Hey everyone,

I have just got back from the most amazing and inspiring trip to Amsterdam for the Etsy Captain's Summit where I was representing the Dorset Team.

The trip was so full on, there was so much to take in but incredible at the same time!

Here are my top 10 things that I learnt at the summit...

Photo Credit : Nafsika who runs the most beautiful Etsy shop selling jewellery

1) Talking to other Etsy Captains is really inspiring. 

Wonderful to hear not only what they have achieved as team captains but also in their own businesses. Feeling super motivated after coming back to improve my own shop and ideas for running the Dorset Team too!

Photo Credit: Nafsika

2) Etsy Admins and staff are pretty awesome! 

All of them were so friendly and you can tell that they really cared about their work.  Even to the point that several of them cried when we were doing the final goodbyes as they said they felt so inspired by the Etsy community AND not only that but lots of the Etsy staff and admin craft themselves (which in my eyes make them even cooler!) Anda who works for the design team brought to the summit her amazing crochet blanket which she worked on over the weekend (with her amazing glitter crochet hook!) 

Photo Credit: Silja who is the captain of the Estonian team 

3)  Amsterdam is full of bicycles!!

They are EVERYWHERE which is amazing but also makes crossing the road quite a scary experience. You have to watch out for cars, the tram AND about a dozen bicycles coming from all directions.

Photo Credit: Silja 

4)  Etsy know a good cake! ;)

They provided us with so many yummy cakes throughout the summit including some on the last day which Annabel from Ka-ching Collectief informs me are from the best patisserie in Amsterdam! 

5)Sometimes silence is good and often what you need to gather thoughts, reflect and gain the confidence to share your thoughts with the group. When in a group discussion situation you shouldn’t be afraid to have silence.

6)Etsy listens. We were able to feed back our ideas directly to the Etsy admin and they listened and seemed genuinely excited by some of the ideas we were coming up with! Can’t wait to see some of our ideas being made a reality and Etsy as a platform improving.

7)You can fit quite a few Etsy captains into a photo booth!  (So much fun even if the photos didn’t come out too well!)

8)Amsterdam is actually pretty cold in Autumn. Lots of warming hot chocolates were needed! 

9)Ideas sometimes come from the strangest places and often spark an even better idea. You know when you have some crazy idea which isn’t complete or your thoughts are everywhere so you don’t share it? Well I tried sharing a few of these and actually talking them through with other people and having their ideas about it made them become a ‘thing’. Yay for creative people working together.

10) I'm super proud of the Dorset Team, all the members and particularly thankful to all of those who volunteer their time to the team :). Made me feel super emotional thinking and reflecting on how much we have achieved as a group. Go us!

Thanks for reading!

The Dorothy Days X

What I have been up to the past week or so....

Hello everyone,

Apologies for my blogging being a bit thin on the ground. It has been super busy here for last week or so meaning that blogging and social media has had to take a bit of a back seat. But.....hopefully it will all be worth it as I have had a super productive week and this has meant that I have loads of new items in my shop!

What I have been up to.....

1) I took some time out to visit my family. Family is super important to me so I travelled over to London to go to my cousin's birthday party and got to see loads of my family. It was so nice to catch up, see everyone and hear their news and is strange how we are all looking more alike as we get older! Eeek!!

2) I launched my new jewellery collection which is a range of one of a kind necklaces in glass, crystals and pearls. The collection would be perfect for weddings and special occasions as well as every day wear.

I am really pleased with how the collection looks and it is nice to have something completely different in my Etsy shop
 I ran my first ever giveaway on Instagram (also on Twitter) to celebrate the launch and gave away one of the necklaces which is part of the collection to this lovely lady who I hope will treasure the necklace for years to come.

3) As well as the new collection I have also been busy working on making and adding lots of new items to my shop including a range of bright coloured necklaces, wool ball necklaces and some vintage pieces.

4) All this listing meant that I hit a big milestone (YAY!) and I now have 400 different items listed in my shop! It has taken me a very very long time to get to this amount of items and is lovely to see lots of the pieces I have worked on available for sale in my shop.

5) I also met up with some other local Etsy sellers which was great fun. We met in a little local cafe and brought along our own craft project to work on. We also made team bunting for our Dorset Team 'Etsy Made Local' fair in December. I can't wait for the fair, it is going to be so much fun!

The Dorothy Days X

What a lovely weekend by the sea - Hove for strolls along the beach followed by Sunday hibernating!

Good evening everyone,

Hope you all had an amazing weekend. I have been taking some time away at the moment and it was been lovely to relax and enjoy some time off. I had the most wonderful weekend and had family to visit. We took a trip to Hove and the weather on Saturday was a bit chilly but not too cold for ice creams and a lovely stroll! There are lots of beach huts along the sea front which have been painted in lots of different colours.

Love these beach huts and what a lovely way to spend the weekend walking along the beach with an icecream in hand. Shame about the weather today! #sunday #beachhut #beachlife #hove #beach #seaside #british #anglophile #colours #postcard #hove #sunshine #sunny #hoveactually #storm #thedorothydays #brightonandhove #sea

A photo posted by The Dorothy Days (@thedorothydays) on Jul 26, 2015 at 2:19am PDT

Today we ventured into Brighton to have a look at some of the vintage shops but the weather was awful. Being on the coast it was so windy and cold and was raining hard too so we abandoned the shopping trip early and came back for tea and treated ourselves to some rather naughty (but very very nice!) cakes and treats. It is the best way to cheer yourself up on a wet and cold Sunday!

On cold and wet Sundays the best thing to do is to hibernate, drink tea and treat yourself to some rather yummy cakes!!

A photo posted by The Dorothy Days (@thedorothydays) on Jul 26, 2015 at 2:54pm PDT

Hope that you all had a wonderful weekend. Did anyone get up to anything nice?

Please let me know in the comments section below. Did anyone else hibernate and drink lots of hot drinks while snuggled in a duvet?! ....or was that just us?!

Style Saturday - Nautical themed home

Hello everyone,

Happy Saturday! I hope that you have had a wonderful week so far and that you enjoy this weekend too. For my Style Saturday post today I wanted to share with all this collection of nautical themed items for the home. This is a great example of how to make nautical look homely and not tacky. I particularly like the string door sot, the paddle and the tripod light. Would look fantastic in a house close to the sea or in a holiday property.

The Dorothy Days Xx

A busy few weeks....!

Hey everyone,

Sorry I have been so quiet on the blog recently. It has been a rather busy few weeks.

In the last few weeks I have...

*Attended an Etsy Craft Party with the Dorset Team
*Holidayed in Berlin
*Worked on lots of large wedding orders for my handmade tags
*Started taking applications for the Dorset Team Christmas Fair
*Visited friends in London
*Made lots of new items for the shop (to be listed soon!)
*Looked after Rufus my Cockapoo puppy after he was feeling rather ill post-op

It has been fantastic to be so busy but also meant I am a bit out of synch with my blogging and got a whole load of half written posts ....ooops!

Will be writing some new posts soon about my holiday and everything else I have been up to so please watch this space!

Thanks for reading

The Dorothy Days Xx

STYLE SATURDAY - Perfect outfit for visiting the galleries

Hello everyone,

Happy Bank Holiday weekend! I hope that you are all having a great one so far. I can't wait for the summer holidays and have just booked a trip away so my mind is turning to holiday shopping! I love this outfit. It is fresh, summery, chic and pretty all at the same time! The skirt is beautiful, I love the print and the colours. It reminds me a bit of Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings. The note book is super cute, perfect if you are a bit of a geek like me and like to visit galleries when you are away and then jot down artists names so you can look them up when you get home!! 

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend

Thanks for reading my blog!

The Dorothy Days Xx

Apparently it is April?!

Apparently it is April.....how did that happen!?

It wasn't that long ago that I made the 'EEEEK HOW DID IT GET TO MARCH?!' post on my blog! March was such a busy month for me but a really enjoyable one too and I am looking forward to what April has to offer, to getting some new items up in the shop and to continue blogging more regularly.

The Dorothy Days X

Total Shop Review - Etsy School

Hello everyone,

Thought I would share with you all today what I have been up to in my shop. I am taking part in the Dorset Team's Etsy School Module. It is a really intensive month of live chats discussions and the Dorset Etsy Team work together to help one another improve their shops. There is a different theme each week and it covers everything from SEO to photography, it is great! I am hoping to improve my shop photography in particular and that is the topic for tonights live chat so I will be there with my notepad jotting down ideas and hopefully (watch this space!) will start making some big improvements to my shop photographs.

Hope you are all having a fantastic week so far, the sun is shining here!

The Dorothy Days Xx

Item of the Week - Handmade rustic style heart tags by The Dorothy Days

Hello everyone,

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading my blog. At this time of year I always get a flurry of orders for my heart tags as people start planning and organising for their weddings and I also get orders for valentines from people using the tags as love notes (One customer hung the tags with messages for his girlfriend on trees and then took her on a romantic walk…awww!). So I have been working hard making lots of tags up for orders. I sell the tags in any amount in increases of 10. The minimum order is for 10 tags and the sky is the limit for maximum! Each tags is handmade and comes strung with cotton which saves you time and effort. They come in two different sizes, large and small. To see my full range of tags including my heart tags please click HERE . You will find different quantities listed in my shop but if you require a different amount please request a custom order and I will set you up with a listing. Out of all the items in my shop I think my tags are my favourite to make and I always love making items for people's special occasions. It has been lovely over the years to hear how people have used my tags. Have you ordered some tags from me? I would love to know how you used yours, please let me know in the comment section below or tweet me.

The Dorothy Days Xx

Heart tags handmade by The Dorothy Days Xx

Happy 2015 from The Dorothy Days

Hello everyone!

Happy New Year to you all. I can't believe that it is now 2015. 2014 seems to have flown by so quickly and so much is different now than it was a year ago, feels so strange thinking back.

Just wanted to wish you all a wonderful new year. I hope that 2015 is a good year for you all and a time to make a fresh start if 2014 was a difficult year. Thank you to all of you who have supported The Dorothy Days in 2014. You have all been amazing and it has been wonderful to see support not only from those in the U.K (particularly local support) but also those across the other side of the globe. I can't even begin to tell you how exciting getting feedback from a customer is about their purchase or someone messaging me to say they enjoyed reading my blog or my tweets. Excited about what is in store for my shop in 2015 and also for the Dorset Etsy Team.

The Dorothy Days Xx

Claude Monet painting to start your week!

Claude Monet - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. 

Good morning!

Happy Monday :)  Normally on a Monday I share an inspirational quote to get the week started but today I thought I would share with you some art instead. I always find it nice to get up in the morning and have a few moments to relax, be quiet and have something to focus on and think about which is calming, really make a difference to a day. So today I am sharing with you all this beautiful work by Claude Monet.

Have a great week everyone!

The Dorothy Days

Dorset Team Christmas Fair - Wimborne - Featured Stallholder: Lynn Davy from Nemeton

Hey everyone,

How are you all? Thanks for stopping by my blog. Getting very excited about the Dorset Team Christmas Craft and Vintage Fair now so I thought I would share with you all another stallholder who will be attending the event. Local jewellery designer Lynn Davy from Nemeton will be exhibiting and selling her amazing necklaces and jewellery at the fair. Lynn often is featured in beading magazines and her jewellery wins competitions. I have been lucky enough to see Lynn's jewellery up close (and also had a little tour of her bead room - it is AMAZING!) and it is even more impressive when you see it up close rather than in photographs. Each piece is so beautifully intricate and cleverly put together and is like wearable art.

Lynn is one of my Dorset Team leaders so plays a very active role in the Dorset Team. She is also a very experienced Etsy seller, having been on the site 6 years. If you are interested in buying a new necklace you should most certainly head down to the fair to meet Lynn and see her jewellery. Lynn will also be selling kits so if you fancy giving beading a go it is a great opportunity to meet Lynn in person and gain a few extra tips! She is also a fount of knowledge on all things Etsy!

Date: 6th December
Where: Allendale Centre, Wimborne
Time: 10am - 4pm
Entry: FREE, children welcome

You can find more information about the fair on both our Facebook event page by clicking here and also our Event Brite page which you will be able to find here

The Dorset Team is also organising a fair on 26th October. please see the Facebook event page for details by clicking HERE. The fair will be in Christchurch

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

Good Morning Berlin - Etsy summit 2014

Good morning Berlin!!

Just a short post as I am about to head off for breakfast with the other team captains and I have not yet finished getting ready but I thought I would first update you all with a few photos so far :)

Was so tired last night and this bed was so very comfy!! 

Good morning Berlin!

Meeting everyone in the hotel lobby in a bit and going for breakfast together, hungry so looking foward to this!

First day...what to wear?! Desicions desicions! 

Schedule for todays events, a very busy but exciting day by the looks of it!

The Dorothy Days Xx