I love Etsy. Don't you? What a great way to connect with creators all over the world! Like any sort of crowd-sourced situation, there are great shops and there are ... not so great shops. Either way, though, it's where you go if you want to find things you can't find anywhere else, and support small business and creators in the process. Here below are my five favorite shops on the site:
This is where I got my elf ears for my Zelda cosplay last year. They also do fairy/fantasy jewelry, corsets, cloaks, and other fantasy designs. It ships from Spain, but I got them very fast - faster than other items I ordered from the US! Great quality, great guest service. If you need a piece for Halloween or a dress-up party or you just have those days where you want to be an elf - I highly recommend this shop.
I haven't ordered from this site - yet - but I keep looking at it lovingly. I don't have gauged ears and probably never will (I think, at 36, that ship may have sailed - not to mention the fact that I have SUPER sensitive ears and had a really hard time with them getting pierced even), so this is a great shop to browse. She makes faux gauges and tentacle earrings that actually have posts, so you can put them in your non-stretched ears and still get the look you're after. She also makes real gauged tentacles, if you DO have stretched ears. With a 5 star rating over 145 reviews - it's clear she's got a great product.
This is Ursula Vernon's shop. If you follow me on other media, you may know that she is my favorite artist of all time. I found her back in college when her site was called Metal and Magic, fell in love, and have been following her ever since (my two favorite pieces by her are this one and this one). Oh and if you've ever been on the internet you've probably seen the LOL WUT pear. Yup, that's based on one of her original paintings, The Biting Pear of Salamanca. She has since transitioned into writing, but still does a fair amount of illustration. As of right now she just has downloadable coloring pages in her shop, but if you're incredibly lucky and obsessively follow her on Twitter you can snatch up a chicken or kingfisher pendant when she puts them up. You have to be fast though - the last few times she put them up for sale, they were gone within a few minutes. Her fan base is nothing if not loyal and obsessed. (And no, I do not have a pendant, despite obsessively following her on Twitter. Too slow in my old age, apparently HA.)
This guy makes some very cool, interesting art, including a set of skeleton door signs that I desperately want to get whenever I finally get a house. This is another one I haven't ordered from (YET), but again, he has a 5 star rating over 800-some-odd reviews so I have no doubts that his quality is good. If you like skeletons or pop culture or both, give this shop a look. You won't be disappointed.
And finally, the shop of a dear friend of mine. If Ursula is my favorite artist, Kiki comes in a very close second, and I'm honored to know her in real life. She makes fantastic prints, and can also do any custom order you want, including paintings and cosplay props in particular. She's even more obsessed with Harley Quinn than I am (and cosplays her better than anyone else on the internet, and I will defend that statement to the death, fight me), and her art embodies her geeky interests - video games, fantasy movies and tv shows, comics, etc. Her digital prints are in the shop, and just send her a message about any custom order!
Today is the first day of a long weekend I took for myself, so I won't be posting again until next week! During this time I hope to catch up on a lot of writing, crafting, and jewelry making. TO THAT END: if I made my own Etsy shop - would you be interested? Would you want to buy my stuff? This platform doesn't seem to allow comment sections, SO head on over to my Instagram (or FB if you're one of my friends from real life) and let me know if you think it's something I should do! Mostly I make jewelry but I've been known to noodle around with other creative forms, like the canvas in the gallery below (that particular piece was a birthday present for a dear friend and therefore will not be recreated, but I have other designs in the works!). Have a wonderful weekend, lovely people!
