Net Fairing
I’m not very good at picking out holiday gifts. I’m the dreaded giver of itchy socks, ugly ties, lumpy sweaters and occasionally my own badly-written poetry. Which is why I was so pleased with myself when I started shopping online for other people’s homemade gifts and found these unexpectedly hip Upcycled Starbucks Card Mosaic Coasters (pictured) for my sister’s new house at Etsy.com. But it didn’t end there: By 4 a.m. the next morning, I had 37 items on my wish list and vowed to revisit year round for birthdays, anniversaries and personal shopping binges.
Think of Etsy as an Internet craft fair, where artists and hobbyists gather in one place to sell their hand-sewn (-painted, -crocheted, -sculpted, -melted, -pressed, -spun … you get the picture) wares. The problem with Etsy is that looking for cool stuff is as much fun as finding it: Those marketing geniuses have devised 16 different ways to find that special handcrafted something, whether searching by favorite color (choose from 196 different shades) or by using the Time Machine function to send the most recently posted items spiraling onto your computer screen. Or you can search the old-fashioned way — by keyword or category.
To support artists and crafters in Philadelphia, try the Shop Local function: just plug in the city of brotherly love and more than a hundred local sellers appear, peddling handcrafted jewelry, artwork and, well, just about anything: I’m thinking of avoiding the winter chill with a cozy pair of fleece fingerless gloves by stay-at-home mom BabyPop ($14 plus shipping) or picking up one of prossackdesigns’ hand-cut Stained Glass Journals to document my life in 2008 ($12 plus shipping).
Now that I can officially call myself an Etsian, (us frequent perusers), I’ve got my eye on this Chocolate Patterned Mug by AmyEsther — made from rich, textured earthenware that will add a little more hearth to my home ($18 plus shipping). — Marielle Messing
Image, etsy.com