One of my recurring craft fantasies is that I will get it together enough to actually produce enough original craft items to sell them. Recipients of my craft items tell me all the time... "You should be selling these."
They don't understand... a lot of heart goes into the one piece. I don't know if I could put that much heart into duplicates of the same piece. So I do something different every year. This summer when we got back from wedding/honeymoon and settled back into home life, I discovered that I had so much arts and crafts paraphernalia that I needed an official craft storage area to organize it all. I had a lot of stuff before the wedding, but after? I had arts and crafts stuff all over the place! It was swallowing me up. So we dedicated an area downstairs in our house. Tore out existing cabinetry, and spent a couple hundred dollars at Ikea to purchase a closet organizing system of shelves, drawers, pull-out baskets, and more. I now officially have a craft supply storage area!!! Woo-hoo!!
Perhaps this will help me to focus long enough to create at least some limited edition collections of items that I can sell.
Meanwhile, I know it's not the be-all-to-end-all, but I'm admiring the artisans on the wonderful website Etsy where people like me... (well, perhaps people a little more organized than I)... sell their artistic creations.
Etsy is a fabulous place to look for one-of-a-kind gifts of all kinds. I've bought everything from gold jewelry to custom-made stationary. They've even got artists and crafters from all over the world who re-purpose, recycle, re-use to their hearts desire. The art of re-purposing is a hot arena these days with being "green" or more eco-conscious is the popular trend of our times.
For our wedding, I made crepe paper flowers, inspired by ones I found for sale on Etsy. I bought victorian style wrist cuffs to give my bridesmaids. I've bought handmade hats to give as christmas presents, and there's so much more!!! Pottery, Gothic fashion, unique holiday decorations, custom formal wear, office accessories, linens, custom period costumes, custom electronic accessories! You name it you'll find it on Etsy.
Yes, perhaps someday soon, I'll get it together, y'all... But where to start???
What's really cool is that the prices are usually very reasonable since you are buying from the person who created the item you are purchasing. This is great because you get great customer service from most vendors, and a much more personal story behind the items you purchase. I love objects with a story. Here are some of my favorite Etsy products for this week:
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