Monday 29 April 2013

Quote of the Week- Billy Connolly- Wear a tea cosy on your head


Hello everyone,

Hope you have all had a wonderful weekend. Anyone get up to anything nice? I thought I would start the week this week with some words of wisdom from Billy Connolly........


Never trust a man, who when left alone with a tea cosy... Doesn't try it on.
Billy Connolly


I then for some strange reason got the urge to google people wearing tea cosies on their heads and found out there is a national 'Wear a tea cosy on you head' day !! How amazing is that and why didn't I know about this before?!?!

Here is a photo of David Mitchell wearing one on his head!

Hope this made you giggle as much as it did me.

Have a fantastic week

The Dorothy Days Xx

Thursday 25 April 2013

Vintage Thursday- A Child's Garden of Verses


Hey guys :)

Check me out....I made a snazzy new banner!! Actually rather pleased with it especially the lovely little vintage style bird. I am also a bit of a nice font addict so was rather excited by this nice swirly font :).

For the last two weeks I have posted vintage things that I found and wanted to share with you and all. They have been quite popular and have had lots of nice comments about the posts so I thought why not turn this into a more regular thing ?! I thought it could be quite a lot of fun to do and gives me an excuse to hunt out wonderful, weird, wacky, beautiful and just plain strange vintage items!!! Sound fun!? I thought so :).

This week I have to share with you all this beautiful illustration from A Child's Garden of Verses written by Robert Lewis Stevenson. It was published in 1905 so really is a proper old vintage book. It was published in New York by Dodge Publishing Company on 23 East 20th Street.  I thought this illustration was just lovely :). The illustrator is Bessie Collins Pease


The text that accompanies the illustration is as follows:

AT THE SEA-SIDE
 When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.


Hope you enjoyed this blog post and thanks for reading :).

The Dorothy Days Xxx

Wednesday 24 April 2013

The Dorothy Days - These are a few of my favourite things!!

Hey everyone :),

How are you all ? Hope your week so far has been good. Still beautifully sunny here in the U.K which feels amazing. I have been a little unwell recently so have been mainly hidden inside working away and resting but tomorrow am hoping to get out and about a little bit more and head out into the sunshine. Hopefully shall be meeting up with one of my friends and going for a drink in this lovely little pub with a really nice beer garden which is just down the road.

I have been working hard recently to improve my shop so I  thought today for my  I would share with you all some of my favourite items in my shop at the moment. I would also be really grateful to hear your opinions on my shop as I am trying to decide how to expand my shop and what new items to put in it. Would love to hear from you guys what your favourite items in my shop are, what you would like to see more of (more tea cups, more jewellery, different types of china etc), anything that I don't have at the moment but you would like to see and also what type of jewellery do you prefer.....the silver style jewellery or the antiqued bronze style?

Any feedback would really help me expand and grow The Dorothy Days so I would be really grateful for any replies......Thank you lovely bloggers!!  I am so excited :)



First up is my little wooden rabbit necklace. I really love this necklace and made one for myself which I wear all the time. It looks really cute with a peter pan collar blouse and always attracts compliments!



Click here to view my retro blue rose necklace

Next are my tea cup and English rose necklaces. These necklaces are some of my best sellers in my shop and as you can see come in two different colours:

*  A beautiful retro blue/ seafoam blue colour

* and a dusky pink English rose colour





Click here to look at my pink rose necklace







These make perfect gifts for a English tea lover and come gift wrapped in an organza gift bag. Matching earrings are also available in my shop.










I am rather in love with this vintage tea cup trio! The set comes with a tea cup, saucer and a cake plate all in the same beautiful English rose design. The colours in this tea set are fabulous and very vintagey with the mint green and pink colours of the rose. It looks even more beautiful in the flesh and is great for tea and toast or tea with a nice slice of cake!! Despite its age this tea set looks as if it has never been used. It is in stunning condition.



Finally are these very chic Parisian grey daisy earrings. These earrings are really stylish and cute at the same time!! They can be dressed up or down and go with nearly any outfit. They are really pretty for the summer too especially with this sunshine we have been getting recently.

They also come in a range of different colours including pastel pink, pastel green, blue and purple.


To browse the different colours please take a look in my shop. I also offer a mix and match in which you can pick two pairs of earrings of the colour of your choice and save on postage!

Hope you enjoyed having a look at some of my favourite items in my little shop. Any feedback on my shop and what you would like to see more of , what you think is missing etc would be greatly appreciated!!! To have a general browse around of my shop and see all my vintage and handmade treasures please click this link.

Thanks for reading
Best wishes to you all :)

The Dorothy Days Xxxx

Monday 22 April 2013

Amazing trippy video- Melt Yourself Down- Fix My Life

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all the views on my blog over the weekend :). I have had views from Russia, France, Italy and Vietnam which is really exciting. Did you all enjoy the sunshine ?! It was so beautiful here in Brighton. I have stocked up on lots of icecreams and spent some time in between working sat out in the garden in the sunshine. I just can't wait for summer now.

Today I thought I would share with you all a rather amazing music video I found from via It's nice that 
The video is directed by Morgan Beringer for Melt Yourself Down's upcoming single 'Fix My Life'

WARNING: The video is really very trippy and has lots of flashing lights and spinning....you have been warned!


Melt Yourself Down - Fix My Life from Morgan on Vimeo.

Hope you enjoyed it. 

The Dorothy Days 

Friday 19 April 2013

Feature Friday - Hand Stitched with Love


Hello everyone :),

Hope that you have all had a wonderful week. The sun is finally shining HORRAY :) and it has been warm enough to be wearing some summer clothes which is always so exciting. Has been a really great week and looking forwards to the weekend now. I have also managed to blog every day this week which I am proud of, I hope you all have enjoyed the posts I have been putting up and hopefully I can continue to blog a little more frequently. 

This week I have a really exciting Feature Friday lined up for you all. I am super excited to be featuring this shop and it is really nice to be featuring a shop from England on my blog too :). 



This week's featured shop is HandStitchedWithLove which is run by Scholastica Brimley who is from Hertford, England. She sells a range of beautiful hand embroidered cross stitch earrings, cufflinks, rings, pendants and home accessories which are inspired by vintage needlework. 


As you can see from this photograph Scholastica's items are so pretty and delicate and also beautifully photographed. This makes browsing through her shop a really lovely experience. Please click here to take a peak!!



Scholastica opened her Etsy shop after another crafty friend recommended the site to her and she listed her first brooch in early 2012. She says that Etsy has been a great way to meet other crafters who have been really kind and generous to her with help and support in running her shop. Being an Etsy seller myself this is something I too have really gained from being part of Etsy, it is not just a great place to set up a shop and sell but also has a wonderful community. I have learnt so much from others on Etsy and it is fantastic to be able to connect with others all over the world. 



About Scholastica

She says " I owe my strange name (especially for someone who grew up in Hong Kong where many of my teachers struggled to pronounce it) to my parents wanting to give me a name with the same number of letters as my brother's, which is Christopher. I have two beautiful girls, aged 2 and 4, who tend to take over my life somewhat. I work as a pensions actuary 3 days a week, which require me to act very grown-up and business-like :) When I'm not stitching I like knitting and teddy-making, but more commonly I can be found baking or making some paper mache masterpiece with the girls.

Oh and I absolutely can't stitch without chocolates :) and have a habit of making my husband feed me little squares as I work, so that my creations can remain smudge-free :)"






How Scholastica got into embroidery:

Scholastica says "I have always loved embroidery and all forms of hand-stitching/sewing (being completely rubbish with a sewing machine), and I still have the little sheep pin cushion that I made when I was 10! Then in 2011 I got quite ill when I was carrying my second daughter, and I did a lot of cross-stitching to help wind away the long hours of being stuck in bed. It was at the point when we were running out of wall space for my many completed samplers that my husband challenged me to make something "useful" out of my cross-stitching - and I made my first pair of cross-stitch cufflinks :)" 



Vintage Patterns

I was really interested in what Scholastica had to say about being inspired by vintage patterns. She said "I have a great love for vintage cross stitch patterns, especially French ones from the early 1900s. I like them for their simplicity and how the shapes and forms are allowed to take centre stage - this may be my mathematical side talking! One of my favourites is the DMC "Point de Marque" collection - the first of which may have been first published in 1890, but the designs still seem relevant and have such vintage charm. I have been known to spend hours trawling through antique shops and online for old prints!"



Scholastica's favourite item from her shop

"My favourite piece in the shop at the moment is the rabbit brooch - it's a labour of love as for some reason it took a lot longer than expected to get her bottom looking just right! I really like how it has turned out though :)"




Have a great weekend everyone and hope you enjoyed this week's Feature Friday. If you did, please leave a comment in the box below, would be wonderful to hear what your favourite item in Hand Stitched with Love is :) .

The Dorothy Days XXxx

Thursday 18 April 2013

Hip hip horray....I did it I did it !!!

Hey everyone :)

Today I have rather very exciting news for you all :).........I finally did it......I finally reached 100 sales!! This is a goal I have had since I open my shop so is a really big deal for me and feels crazy and surreal that I finally achieved it :). HIP HIP HORRAY!!!

Thank you to everyone who has bought something from me, it has been so lovely to be able to ship my little vintage and handmade items all around the world and gives me a buzz every time I sell something. I really love being an Etsy seller!!

These rose earrings were my 100th sale 
Thanks again everyone :) and please check out my blog tomorrow for a really exciting Feature Friday blog post :)

The Dorothy Days Xxx

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Vintage photographs - Wordless Wednesday

Hello everyone,

On Wednesdays all over the internet, bloggers post a photograph with no words to explain it on their blog. Hence the ‘wordless’ title. The idea is that the photo itself says so much that it doesn’t need any description.


Hope you enjoyed this week's Wordless Wednesday, I think she is so beautiful!

The Dorothy Days

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Spring Peace- A beautiful collection that I was featured in

Hey everyone,

This week one of my tea cups of featured in a really beautiful Etsy treasury collection by an artist called Caroline who is from Canada. The collection's theme is Spring (if you didn't guess that already hehe!)  I really love the colours and it reminds me of that lovely fresh air and spring blooms which you get at this time of year  so I thought I would share it with you all.

All items are avaliable to buy on Etsy.

Big thanks to Caroline for featuring me :)

'Spring Peace' by heroux

Great spring finds and creations :)


landscape photography flower...
$25

Angel Art Doll - Paper Clay ...
$40

Stained Glass Suncatcher,Yel...
$16.5

Daisy Flowers Crochet Appliq...
$44

Petite Light Pink Floral Cha...
$45

Signed Birds of Spring (wate...
$840

Robin eggs, bird eggs, Sprin...
$5

Set of 10 Birch Bark flower...
$197.5

Envelope Seals: Stickers, Pe...
$5

White Peace Dove ChandiCharm...
$5

yellow tea cup floral flower...
$14

Window Study Print, Botanica...
$25

TEAL COTTAGE CHALKBOARD Beac...
$96

Chevron Craze Angel Dress in...
$40

Matricaria Chamomilla Floral...
$25

nature photography, bird, sw...
$20

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Monday 15 April 2013

Quote of the Week- Maya Angelou



Found this lovely quote for this week's Quote of the Week. I hope you like it as much as I do :)



“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou


The Dorothy Days