Etsy!

I have a love/hate relationship with Etsy. I love, love, love it, and my bank account hates, hates, hates it! I stumbled upon Etsy a couple of months ago when I was looking for pictures of cute penguins. This adorable set of felt penguins came up in my results lists, and then I followed a link to a book on how to make them. The book was listed in Etsy, and thus our relationship began. I have ordered a number of things from Etsy – jewelry, switchplate covers, prints – and I have been satisfied with everything. Just as Jennifer suggested, I have already purchased a few holiday gifts on Etsy. I find the quality of the things I buy to be quite good, the items are unique (you can’t necessarily get them at the mall or big department stores), the prices to be reasonable, and I really like supporting independent artisans. I like the “Main Showcase” feature on the front page of Etsy. I try to browse this once a day to continue getting ideas for holiday gifts. I also like how I can add items and sellers to a “favorites” list; however, I wish that I could make my list public so I could give it to my family for gift ideas. I haven’t yet found a way to make that possible. Here is a link to one of my favorite sellers. I really do think that this is a great way to business, and I don’t think that a lot of these sellers will be badly affected by the economic downturn. As I said, the prices for the most part are reasonable, and I find this to be a much better option for my shopping than going to the mall and buying mass-produced items for the same price or more.

I also took a look a MOO, which I had never heard of before. I think I might take advantage of some of the products they offer for the holidays. For instance, I have a 3-year-old niece who just loves stickers. I think she would go nuts if she saw herself on a sticker. Again, I like how these items are unique and special, but are also affordable.

Thank you for reading!