Posts tagged ‘etsy’

After our Book Swap on Saturday, my family went to Art on the Square with Colleen and her family. There were quite a few craft vendors there, some food vendors (we had yummy wasabi sliders from somewhere, but I forgot the name. Sorry!) and live music on mulitple stages.

We were walking down the street, enjoying the weather, when I saw one of my favorite local Makers: Toony Jewelry. I keep running into Barbara and her wares ever since my first time vending at Oddmall where she was my booth neighbor. I have picked up, put down, and picked up and put down, etc. her jewelry a thousand times but had never been able to make a choice. But this time I was looking out for something craft-related and that made it so much simpler to decide. This necklace came home with me, and I must say, it love it.

We are a couple of weeks away from Kindergarten here at our house. And the rest of the country is getting all of their ducks in a row to waddle back to the big pond of school. We have a bunch of  school supplies to purchase, like crayons and stuff like that, but there are also items we need that can be bought handmade or second hand. I’ve been looking around the interwebs and wanted to share some of my findings with you!

Terre Mum has lots of eco-friendly items in her shop, mostly food related. But if you’ve got to pack a lunch this year, absolutely stop by her shop for one of these great snack bags. I especially like that they are just linen lined with cotton, which doesn’t help keep pretzels from going stale, but will keep chemicals from leeching onto your Kiddo’s snack. I am definitely buying a few of these.

Made By Rae has a great pattern for a Toddler Backpack on her site which I would love to try  to make. For the seamstresses out there, this would be a great way to help your Kindergartener feel personally invested in her first day of school. Picking out the fabric for your own backpack is one step above picking out the first day of school outfit.

Olivia has to wear a uniform to her school so I have been looking for cute belts and socks to give her some freedom of expression. That’s how I stumbled upon Ivan and Mary and this Alligator Belt in her shop. I love the little alligator and how it reminds me of the preppy school polo shirts. What a perfect belt!

And since lunch seems to be the one thing I am most obsessed about (I’m so worried about my child eating her food at school!) lets look at lunch bags. Deerpath Designs‘ Personalized Lunch Bags look adorable. And, the one I’ve featured here already has my daughter’s name on it! Taking into account the prices for bags I saw at Target today, $21.99 is very reasonable for a handmade bag.

I hope everyone’s transition into the school year goes great, no matter what grade your kids (or you!) are entering. And if you have, or you’ve seen, an awesome handmade item that’s great for back to school you’d love to share, please leave a link in the comments.

Thanksgiving is this week! Egads! I can’t believe it is time to start shopping (if you haven’t already) and planning for holiday get-togethers. This is the only time of year that I get to dress up to the nines, since my husband’s company has a big Christmas Party every December. This year it is at the House of Blues, so I get to be a little more funky and less formal with my look. I’ve been making these velvet fascinators for the Cleveland Handmade Last Minute Market, and I’m considering keeping one for myself.

I don’t have a picture of it in my hair because my camera was not cooperating and neither were my kids, but here it is. I used the same fabric for this as I did for the YoYo in my tutorial last week. To give it stability I fastened it to suede cloth with extra strong fusible interfacing, and there are snapping hair clips in it to put it in your hair. Even though there are swarovski crystals on it, the whole thing cost less than $5 and took 30 minutes to make.

Here are some other fascinators I found on etsy. Mine is pretty simplistic in design because I’ve just started making them, but these are some really funky ones that I would love to wear. I might end up buying a different one altogether, so I’m inviting you all to cyber shop with me!

Butterfly from Lotuslulu

The Audrey from feather by feather

Delilah from the honeycomb

Jennifer Doll of Landen Road Designs specializes in handmade ceramic buttons & knitted children’s items.  Not only has she set up shop at Etsy, but if you’re local to Akron, Ohio, she’s selling at the Hartville Fall Arts & Crafts Festival this Saturday and sells at Tween Diva in Hartville.  Stay tuned, because next week Landen Road Designs will be doing a ceramic buttons giveaway for our readers!  *Hint, they’re green & blue and you might spy them on her Flickr.

The following is from Kim, who selected the winner from our contest which ran from Monday until last night:

First prize winner of a business card case in her color of choice is Jessica, who had quite a few unique suggestions for using my leather business card cases. I loved her ideas for using the case to create a healthy snack pack, holding almonds or some other such snack for the afternoon; to hold her Bible study verses (this spoke to me because my daughter insists on having one in which to hold her spelling words!); as a child’s play wallet or for baseball trading cards; and her really unique idea to use multiple colors of the cases to color code a mini recipe card collection in the kitchen!

A very close second prize winner of a leather ponytail holder is Rebecca, who also had quite a few creative suggestions of her own, such as a little personal emergency kit containing a package of oil-free blotters, band-aid(for blisters) and a mini-toothbrush for discreet on the town touch-ups, as a create your own notepad holder, by using it to hold a package of sticky notes and a mini pen to be tucked into your business bag, and finally as a Sunday running buddy to keep your house key, Starbucks card and Chapstick so you can quickly tuck them in your gym shorts.

I really appreciate the time everyone took in entering this contest, and in return I’d like to offer all of you a 15% discount on your next purchases from my shop, which you can redeem by identifying yourself and pasting the url from your contest entry in the notes to seller when you complete your purchase at www.unemployeddesigner.etsy.com.

Thanks guys, it was a lot of fun!

It’s time again for our First Friday interview with a new Etsy shop owner. This month I’ve had the pleasure of talking with Kim, the artist and creator from Unemployed Designer on Etsy. She took some time out of her busy week to answer a few questions for us which I think you will really enjoy. Kim has professional fashion and design experience and is kind enough to pass on some of that wisdom to us (as in me) lay-creators.

Kim also has offered to host a contest here at the Nest, so be sure to check back on Monday. You can win a free handmade leather business card case, handmade by Kim.

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1) I read a little bit about you in your profile. It says that you are an apparel designer and a fashion illustrator. Do you find that you use those skills when designing items for your Etsy store even though you aren’t sewing clothing? Is there a reason that you don’t sew clothing items for your store?

I do find that I’m using some of the same skills that I use as an apparel designer and illustrator, not only in designing items for my shop, Read more »

I did a little Etsy window shopping for my Dad and my Husband. Rob won’t get anything from this list, cause that would be cheating! But my Dad might, since I don’t think he reads this blog. If he does, then he wins and I don’t care if the surprise is spoiled. These are some items that I think might tickle the Dad’s in my life:

Soaps from karenssoaps.etsy.com

These soaps from Karen’s Soaps are a useful alternative to buying a golfer actual golf balls. I’m sure that my Dad just goes out and buys new balls when he needs them and doesn’t sit around and wait for holidays and hope that someone buys him a package of golf balls. 

They are just tacky enough to be awesome. I put these first because they are on the top of my list.

Read more »

This is our first installment of a monthly feature, for now I’m calling them “First Friday Interviews” because they will posted on the first friday of the month. Colleen and I brainstormed about who would make an interesting interview subject from Etsy. It took some narrowing down since Etsy is such a huge place. After bouncing around ideas we determined the criteria for Etsy Sellers should be that their shop is new, their work is exciting, and that they have a low number of sales in order to help spread the word about a new artist.

Well, we really out did it with this first Seller. Ryan Taylor of Kaptafa is all of those things and more. As you’ll see from our short interview, this guy really loves his work and has a real commitment to the global community to boot. Ryan has also offered to give-away a 10% off coupon to one of our readers! I wish I could take it myself! So check out his store, Kaptafa, and if you see something you’d love to purchase please leave a comment and add the word “drawing” to the end. We’ll enter you in a give-away and one reader will be selected randomly for the 10% off coupon.

So, sit back and enjoy my interview with Ryan, the woodworker from Kaptafa. Read more »