Mon, Jul 06, 2009

at Home

Crafters hawk wares at hip online bazaar

By Erin Wade
The Dallas Morning News
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.25.2007
Online shopping site of the week: Etsy.com.
You love handmade home items, but sometimes hitting the flea markets and crafts bazaars is just too much. We understand, and so do the folks at Etsy.com, a hip online community where you can buy and sell handmade goodies. The buying process works similarly to eBay: You can bid or purchase on the spot.
Search by categories such as furniture, ceramics and even "geekery" (aka electronics and gadgets), or by color or location of artist. The "geolocator" map is cool if frustratingly difficult to navigate, but we still found an insane number of local craftsters hawking their wares.
Dallas designer Deadbeat Leather has a page on the site. We also love Tiger Bee's custom-painted boxes, glass dishes by Chromosapien, Dgoods' felt cuffs, ceramics by NKP Designs and Funky Sanctuary's glassware.
There also are plenty of jewelry and handbag designers, so set aside some time to explore this site and all the handiwork it has to offer.