I'm back! Ooops - Just a 6 year gap!

Oh my life!

How can so much time have passed - like nearly 6 years!  I used to love keeping a blog as a diary of sorts!

So the plan is that I will revive it! So much has happened in 6 years - business wise, family wise and me too!  So this is the continuation of the journey - and Dottie Designs website just got a flowery make over!

Back soon!

Dottie :)

September Resolutions!

I like September!  I think it comes from having new things to go back to school in as a child!  New shoes, new classroom, new books and pencils - oh yes!  In fact now I think about it, it probably has a lot to do with stationery!!

Anyway - my September resolutions are to get back to posting on my blog!  Just never seems to be enough hours in the day!

Today the children and I are going blackberry picking!  We have seen people coming back from the Alverstoke Country Park that is across the road with bags full!  Hope they have left some for us!

I also have a giveaway at the moment on facebook

Do pop over and enter - this lovely pink and girlie keepsake box is the prize!

Have a lovely Sunday - whatever you are doing!  Back soon :)

An Exciting Day Out!

My blog has been sadly neglected recently with a desperate need for a 36 hour day to fit everything in. In January Diane from Adien Crafts and I had an idea to set up a small, proactive team on Etsy where everyone works together for promotion.

The team is working exceptionally well and we now have nearly 4000 likers on Facebook and over 4000 followers on Twitter which is awesome in such a short time!

Somehow we managed to catch the eye of Etsy HQ in London and were invited up to Shoreditch to their HQ for a workshop!

So on Thursday I went with 4 of the team to London!

Etsy is situated in the Tea building - there were lots of other interesting companies working from there too

Susannah from Etsy ran the workshop was lovely and taught us so much!

There were 2 other teams there too - one from Brixton that are a team of locals that sell in markets and fairs and have joined Etsy for an online presence, the other team was the Brighton Team.

Nice nibbles too!

British Crafters Delegation - l-r Carol from Designs by Caz, Gillian from Wideskypapercrafts Me and Ailsa from Bramalfie Beads

The Etsy bit was a desk in a big open plan office space, nice bunting over the desks though!

The decor was randomly interesting!

Not quite sure of the relevance!

Liked this!

There wasn't an Etsy one for their room but we thought these were fab!

So we had a brilliant day out and have left brimming with ideas for a July packed full of new promotions, shop dusting and other secret things!!

Watch this space!

Are you a Health or a not?!

'Take your pick' by dottiedesignsxx

Healthy or not!You can tell alot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.Ronald Reagan

Blue Vintage Baby/Toddler Dr... WillowsRoom $8	textile cake brooch maxollieandme $6
Apple iPhone 4, iPhone 4S Ca... LeanneWoodsDes... $7.5	Apples, blueberries and a bu... Jaysmonkey $7.5
Patterned paper 6"x6&q... Christinescraf... $1.75	Chocolate Croissant earrings... GiraffesKiss $7.5
Pretty Cupcake Knitting Bag SimJaTa $16	Birthday Keep Calm and Eat C... ZwKaHandCrafts $2
Very British Striped Tea Pot... DollyCool $8	HALF PRICE SALE Royal Browni... ZukrBoutique $2.1
Banana -- Yellow felt kawaii... ILoveCookies3 $2.5	Felt Patterns - Fruit Slices... umecrafts $5
Vegetables Original Watercol... janedukeartist $40	Pea pod brooch tinyminds $18
two peas in a pod crochet am... Lybo $10.5	Dollhouse Miniature Food Cho... littletimewast... $10

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

It's March 1st!

Happy St David's Day!

Spring is just around the corner!  Yippee!!

Lucky lucky me!

I was very lucky this week to win a giveaway that was held by

  Tea with Rachael and Stephen

They were looking for opinions on which logo they should have between 2.  

I love the one they choose!

My goodies arrived wrapped with string and there is so much stuff - it's very generous!  I have to say that 2 of my doodle books were snaffled straight away by my youngest children! 

 Still 1 left for me though!

Click on the link above to check out this fab shop that sells on Folky & Etsy

 and other places, all linked from the blog.

Thank you Rachael & Stephen - lovely products and I will be a paying customer soon, that's for sure!

Facebook's a funny place!

One of my New Years Resolutions was to try a bit harder with Facebook, so I've been actively tring to grow my like list and managed to get from 1000 to 1500 followers in a week!

1500 Facebook followers - wahoo!

Now some people will say that it is quality not quantity of likers that is important and whilst I do agree to a certain extent I also believe that everybody "out there" is a potential customer.  If I'm liked by an undertakers, I like back!  Thinking Condolence Books!  Also everybody needs Mother's Day gifts, Wedding gifts and the like so I am quite happy to befriend anyone!

It's early days but I've had 3 sales in a week which is great and it's certainly very nice not to pay commission other than to paypal on the sale!

Open to any hints and tips, I really am still a Facebook novice!

Hope you are all keeping warm and the snow hasn't caused havoc!  Will post our snowman Freddie in the next blog as his photo is hiding in my phone!