Etsy: Buy, Sell, and Live Homemade

I love to scour antique shops and thrift stores for unique things, whether they're hard-to-find items from bygone eras, or items carved, stitched, or painted with love. I also love to shop online, and occasionally have found some unique pieces on eBay. But when I stumbled onto Etsy, I was thrilled about combining the two. And unlike the craziness that eBay can be at times, Etsy just seems so...tranquil.

Etsy is a global marketplace where craftspeople go to sell their products to non-crafty people such as me, which happens to be Etsy's mission statement: to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers. At Etsy one can buy homemade jewelry, clothing, and purses; home accessories; paintings; and really whatever inspires the imaginations of Etsy sellers. Etsy sellers number in the hundreds of thousands, with buyers and sellers in more than 150 countries.

If you're a crafty person and Etsy sounds like the place you'd like to unload your creations, you may want to read the new book, How to Make Money Using Etsy: A Guide to the Online Marketplace for Crafts and Handmade Products. It's written by Tim Adam, a world-wide Etsy seller since 2007. Your bank account and my house and person will thank you.