Focus.de Interview

A few months ago I met with Janko Röttgers, a German journalist living in LA, to discuss how wonderful Etsy is! The piece was for a German online zine called Focus. The whole thing is in German, so I have no idea what it really says, but I translated it in Sherlock, and here is what I get:

"it is great. Fantastisch. Madly." Michelle Caplan can hardly seize
their enthusiasm into words, if she speaks about the on-line
commercial platform Etsy. Etsy is a market place for handmade. More
than 140,000 artists and other creative humans sell there decoration,
handgeschneiderte clothes, even sketched, non-standard arranged
greeting cards and so on. ABOUT interview: Renaissance of the handmade
Caplan uses the platform for approximately one year, in order to offer
her collages and printing consisting of old photos and newspaper
articles for the purchase. Etsy helped to make from its hobby an
occupation reports into of Los Angeles living artist. "I won thereby
even customers from the foreign country", so Caplan. "I do not know,
why it gave such a thing not already in former times."

Buy after colours

Etsy.com is part of a new generation of on-line supplies, which
connect a buying with new Web technologies and a InterNet-typical
community feeling - a combination, which is called also Social
Shopping. Etsy users can structure as with MySpace connections among
themselves. Over these connections then again dealer with similar
products lets itself be found.

Etsy sets besides on a whole number of innovative items, in order to
simplify consumers a discovering of new products. Thus the entire
catalog can be searched on the basis a color matrix. This displays
then for example handmade bookmarks, smell cushions and illustrations,
which possess all the same blue value.

Better than Ebay

Michelle Caplan believes that such spielerischen discovery
journeys are ideal for art and handmade. "you show things, which one
would not find otherwise", explains her. On traditional sales
platforms one would be neglectable as a niche provider against it much
too fast. "nobody clicks itself by 15 pages of full art articles" to
report white it from own experience as a former Ebay ebay-Haendlerin. . . .

As you can see, the translation is a bit funky, but I think you can get the idea. The article goes on to talk about ThisNext, and Threadless as well. You can see the German version here.

Tote Hell!

Lately I have been focusing on designing sewn items with my art on them. I have designed a few items that will all be one of a kind. I'll be sharing those soon. But today, I have to share my very first tote bag, because it almost made me give up sewing all together!

Nothing makes you feel like you've had a total brain fart more than doing one side perfectly and then doing the other just backwards! I feel like the coyote that has just been struck by the anvil! I am seeing stars! I am sure this will all get easier as I practice. I just cant wait for those days!

Funky Chicken?

A very well kept secret is that I am a big fan of educational TV. Last night I was engrossed in the new Discovery Channel Series Planet Earth. Did you see it?? Last night were the first 3 episodes, and there are 11 in total. They were just amazing! All I can say is that the footage is so rare and gorgeous, I wish I was in an IMAX theater! All of the unusual animals were breathtaking. My favorite vignette was a bit about Birds of Paradise in New Guinea. It was a segment in the "Poles to Poles" episode, and it showed the mating rituals of these ornate and colorful male birds. They danced around trying to impress the females. It was both hysterical and elegant at the same time. The above picture is of the Blue Bird of paradise (Yes, that black oval with the teal is a bird!) trying to woo that lady bird!

You can see a short clip of this segment if you click here, select the second tab (Planet Earth Highlights, like in the pic) and scroll down to close to the bottom to the birdie bit.

I wish I could link you right to it, or have it plugged in here, but Discovery Channel doesn't make it easy! Try to catch the episode on Discovery so you get to see the entire segment. It was inspiring!

Etsy induced hunger

Did anyone see the Etsy homepage this evening?? My stomach actually growled! Granted, it is 11:38 at night, and my eyes are half open, but still! These plushies are super cool!