Monday, October 15, 2012

Not cross-eyed yet

Though, truthfully, I thought I would be. This weekend was Craft Central. I had 4 dance jackets, 1 sweatshirt and 1 tshirt to rhinestone this weekend. I finished the 3 rush jackets, as those dancers will be going to Branson over MEA weekeend. Good luck, ladies and have fun!  The tshirt is a rush order, but I will get that one done tonight once I get home.  Not cross-eyed from putting the rhinestones on, but Saturday I thought I would be a goner.

Saturday I was working on no-sew blankets, aka tie blankets. The fabric pattern we had chosen was a black and white polka dot. My eyes were swimming by the end. We finished 7 or so blankets. Still have more to do for this batch, but we needed to stop. Some of us were hurting, me included. My feet were hurting from standing up for 4 hours.

Sunday was rhinestone day. Watched me some football and made some jackets very sparkly. Having a tough time concentrating at work, though. But that could be the late bedtime I had. I had to watch the Packers win the game.

So, I was browsing Etsy today, and I am very upset. On the front page was a broken toy up for sale. Seriouly? It was being sold as vintage. I'm not going to post it because I don't want it getting any more hits. This infuriates me just as much as looking for brand new handmade listings and getting my first page of listings filled with alibaba junk. Where is the handmade artistry? I'm not talking about art itself - I've never understood it. I'm talking about people who make handmade cards or baby clothes or honest to goodness handcrafting jewelry. Not taking charms and stringing them together and stamping it handmade. That is not handmade. I'm talking about beaders taking seed beads and creating a patterned bracelet. My mom does this kind of work, but if she were to sell on Etsy, her beautiful designs would be lost in the sea of pre-fabricated charms on cheap necklaces.

Seriously, we need to take a stand to buy handmade this Christmas. Send a message to these resellers on Etsy that we aren't going to take it anymore. I've already taken the first step to distance myself from Etsy by having my own website. I'm hoping that soon I will get sales from it. Yes, my prices look more expensive on my website than on my Etsy site, but that is because I have to include shipping in my prices on my website. Etsy has a separate shipping feature. Or bring all your business to Goodsmiths.com, who only deals in handmade products. I have a ton of games and toys that I have passed down to my son that would be considered vintage and that I could list on Etsy, but I don't. I take pride in my listings. Etsy doesn't want to police its site to make sure the resellers are banned - they want the money from each listing too badly. That's why they are saying they will allow sellers to use pre-fabricated parts. Because there are over a hundred jewelry sellers on Etsy already using them.

Sorry, this pisses me off to no end. I know jewelry sellers who seriously handcraft jewelry and they are getting lost in the mountains of listings from these resellers.

So, to celebrate handmade, here is my Brand New Monday treasury for this week. I wish each of these shops good luck during the holiday season.

Brand New Monday

 
If you haven't already, please check out the new website and let me know what you think. Just click the 'home' tab at the top. Spread the word by re-blogging or sharing on your social media networks.
 
Support Handmade!
 
Always,
 
Jen

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