Inspiration

Quit Your Day Job: JessicaDoyle’s Video Edition
In lieu of our traditional Quit Your Day Job interview, today we have a special video installment! Jessica Doyle is a Canadian writer, artist and influential Etsy seller. Her blog, Art & Musings, is deeply honest, touching, inspiring and contains beautiful illustrations and images. She grapples with serious issues of addiction and how it affects…

Passover Sweet Tooth
It’s no secret, I have a sweet tooth. At Etsy, I’m known for my well-stocked candy or cookie stash. Need a sugar fix? Just find me! But what about Passover? Passover is the Jewish holiday commemorating our ancestors’ flight from Egypt. We had to leave in such a hurry, that our bread didn’t even have…

Handmade for Haiti: Threadbanger’s Corinne Leigh Teams Up With Planting Peace
We’ve known Corinne, our friend over at Threadbanger, for some time now, but we didn’t know that before Threadbanger, she helped start a charity in Haiti about six years ago. She has joined back up with her friend and founder of Planting Peace, Aaron Jackson, to help Haiti in the wake of the earthquake. They’ve…

“This Is Not a Black Holiday; It Is a People’s Holiday.”
Those are the words that Coretta Scott King, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s widow, said after President Ronald Reagan signed the King Holiday Bill into law on Nov. 2, 1983. Fifteen years earlier on April 4, 1968 the man many now refer to simply as MLK was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee. In lots…

Wham, Pow, It’s Boxing Day!
“In this corner, weighing in at 157 pounds….” Ok, so here in the U.S. we don’t really know much about Boxing Day but we do realize that it doesn’t have anything to do with pugilism! A little research on the topic unearths quite a bit of interesting — if not completely consistent — information about…

Show Us Your Crazy Christmas Tree
PollyPainting‘s blue Christmas tree literally made me squeal with delight. It really does look like something out of Dr. Seuss! How’s that for holiday cheer! What’s your interpretation of holiday decor — whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or another holiday? Are you a classic traditionalist or do you go in for zany vintage kitsch?…

Etsy Israel Team Wishes You a Happy Hanukkah!
Hanukkah, or The Festival of Lights, is an eight day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabees Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. The holiday is observed by the kindling of the lights of a special candelabrum, the nine-branched Menorah or Hanukiah, one light on…

Thank You, Etsy Community
In the United States, we are gathering together with family and friends this Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving, a day of gratitude for all we have. For fellow Etsians outside the U.S., it may be just another day hard at work; nevertheless, it is a good reason to take pause and thank each of you for…

Halloween Hosting: Kill Devil Punch Recipe From Food & Wine Magazine
Your guests will be reeling (in a good way) from this punch! The recipe for Kill Devil Punch came to Food & Wine Magazine from Phil Ward, bartender at the aptly named Death & Co. It features a block of raspberry ice that melts, slowly releasing its juices (a.k.a. raspberry blood) into the bowl throughout…

October 24 is International Day of Climate Action!
If you haven’t heard already, tomorrow, October 24, 2009, people all over the world are coming together in places as simple as your local park and diverse as the Taj Mahal and the Great Barrier Reef to send a big, loud, important message to world leaders: “Solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must…

A Cornucopia of Well-Wishes to our Canadian Friends
The second Monday in October is the traditional date of Thanksgiving Day in Canada. The holiday has roots in the European tradition of harvest festivals, and a common motif is a “cornucopia” or horn filled with seasonal fruits and vegetables, the horn of plenty. Unlike its sister to the South, Canada’s Thanksgiving Day has nothing…

Our Thoughts Go out to Our Friends in Asia
As many of you have no doubt seen on the news, the Samoan Islands were hit hard by an earthquake-induced tsunami and then today another earthquake. Indonesia has been rocked by two huge earthquakes, and typhoon Ketsana has ripped through Laos, the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia. More than 1000 people have died and countless others…

How-Tuesday: Porcelain Ornaments Holiday Decor with Virginia Griswold
YouTube | blip.tv | MP4 | Subscribe in iTunes This week, Etsy How-Tuesday presents Virginia Griswold. Today we’re going to learn how to make ornaments out of teacups, or any kind of small porcelain object you can find or recycle. Hang them on your tree! Materials Needed: Teacup or porcelain objects Dremel tool Diamond tipped dremel bits…