If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably gone through this scenario – you’re browsing the internet (often in my case that means Etsy) and you see something really great. “What!” You maybe say out loud as you look at how well the creator of this product is doing. Of course, they deserve to be reaping rewards from their great idea. It’s only fair, but you still have to say, “Man, I wish I would’ve thought of that.”
Maybe that doesn’t happen to you, but for me, an aspiring artist trying to create a business selling my handmade goods, this scenario happens all the time. I’ve decided, though, instead of being envious, I will celebrate the successes of these Etsy artists here in this article, and tell you the reason I admire their creative vision.
1. My Bookmark: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MyBookmark You have to love their bookmarks. They look like someone got squashed in between the pages of a book, with only their legs hanging out! What a great idea, right?
2. Handy Maiden: http://www.etsy.com/shop/handymaiden First, what a great shop name! Handy Maiden is a shop full of handmade polymer clay animal totems and animal jewelry. Now the little animals even come in cute little boxes so that you can carry the little guys around with you. How cute!
3. Hippie Kingdom: http://www.etsy.com/shop/hippiekingdom More and more people are trying to recycle and go green. I think that’s great. Hippie Kingdom is the shop of an artist in India who uses what some people would simply toss in the garbage to make stunning jewelry. She’s made earrings out of cardboard, rings out of foil, and etc. I have to admire her creativity and resourcefulness.
4. Wendy MacNaughton: http://www.etsy.com/shop/wendymacnaughton I love pictures, but I love a picture that teaches me something 10 times more. In Wendy MacNaughton’s shop I came across the “Circles of Influence” print. It features an illustration of the faces of Voltaire, Shakespeare, Hemingway, and Tolstoy along with arrows pointing to the names of other great movers and shakers in history, showing who influenced who. It’s quite engaging.
5. BeHappyNow: http://www.etsy.com/shop/behappynow Another great shop name, don’t you agree? What I really like about this shop is that when you browse the shop you see all these paintings of a sort of peculiar looking woman with huge glasses, a short black bowl hair cut, she’s not smiling, and her neck is wrapped with a humongous scarf. At first I thought that these paintings entitled “Yokoo” were simply depicting a made up character. Until one day I saw on Etsy’s front page the real flesh and blood human version of the paintings and that she had a shop where she knitted scarves, and hats. Truthfully, it sort of scared me and delighted me at the same time. It was like I had solved a mystery, when really I did very little, but it was gratifying to put two and two together, I wished that I had started a similar creative collaboration as covertly as BeHappyNow and Yokoo seemed to have worked together. There aren’t enough surprises in life anymore!
So those are the first 5 Etsy artists I think are pretty awesome. Please be sure to check their shops out. stay tuned for more articles about smart artists.
Please also leave comments. Like- what have you seen that you wish you would’ve come up with?