I’ve tried my hand, sometimes with success, sometimes not, at a variety of arts and crafts. I enjoy the creativity and the sense of accomplishment of creating something myself. I also appreciate handmade items made by others and frequent farmer’s markets, arts and crafts bazaars and festival bazaars looking for unique items. One of my favorite purchases is a backpack style purse that I purchased from a Granville Island Day Vendor in Vancouver, B.C. It’s the workhorse I carry when I travel and is well-used. I doubt that a mass-produced purse could withstand the same abuse. I think it’s important to support artisans and crafters. It’s easy to buy something mass-produced because it’s cheap and it’s easily readily available. (Note: If you’re parking your car(s) in the driveway because your garage is full of “stuff”, it’s time to reduce).
Etsy looks to reverse that trend. It is a two year old web community that employs 45 full-time employees, 60,000 individual artists selling more than 800,000 of their handmade creations. According to their webpage:
“Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade. We built it for those consumers conscious of the true value of handmade goods and their creators, as well as to give all independent artists the technology and information they need to make a living, making things. Our intention is to offer viable alternatives to mass-produced objects in the world marketplace, and to encourage consumers to be aware of the social and environmental implications of their purchases.
The connection between producer and consumer has been lost. We created Etsy to help them reconnect, and swing the pendulum back to a time when we bought our bread from the baker, food from the grocer, and shoes from the cobbler.
Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice: Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.”
You can find everything from jewelry, purses, clothing, toys, beauty products, well, you name it. Navigating 800,000 creations is a bit daunting but you can search for items by color, geographic location, occasion or gift recipient. There’s plenty of help and “how to’s” for artisans as well. It’s one thing for an artisan to be able to create something beautiful but another to present it to the world and try to make a living from it. I applaud their efforts!
Related Post: Website of the day: ReadyMade
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Welcome to Verda Vivo. My name is Daryl Warner Laux.
