Etsy

My obsession with Etsy is getting worse as each day of the holiday season passes. At this point I am visiting the homepage more than once a day, clicking through dozens of different gifties each time. It's an addiction! The items on the site are just so darn unique and wide-ranging, from pottery to art prints to jewelry to dog clothing. I can't get enough!

I tried to sell my own photos on the site last winter (and didn't sell a single thing) and from that point on I've been an Etsyan. I've only bought one item (!) from the site, four packets of seeds from an artisal flower grower in the Pacific Northwest. I wish I could tell you I had a beautiful array of colorful asters growing in my garden but sadly I planted all of the seeds right before a two-week cold snap in June and none survived. I'm sure they would have been beautiful! I have faith that anything else I buy from the site will be wonderful and gorgeous and give me the warm fuzzies.

There are so many of us Etsyans out there that there is now a parody site called Regretsy where people post the worst of Etsy's items, including a large plastic hair bow filled with playing cards and a Hitler-tinkerbell painting. There are quite a few questionable items on Etsy, and I've come across many things that I felt were not handmade or vintage (as the site declares the items must be). Oh well, people will always try to beat the system.

If you've never visited the site, I suggest paging through some of the items at least once. It's like a hipster craft fair every day! And now I'm off to the Bazaar Bizarre, a real hipster holiday craft fair!