she’s crafty

I am completely addicted to ETSY.  I love her.  I would marry her.  I have known about this website for a long time, I even have some friends that sell there goods via this website, but I haven’t really delved into it in much depth until recently.  It is craft central.  And for some reason I hate that word “crafty.”  It has (at least with me) this weird connotation of something made low quality and with some backwoods sort of country style.  Not that there is anything particularly wrong with this country style.  I conjure up thoughts of paintings with country blues and mauves and fabrics like plaids and bandana’s.  Yuck!

Crap like this

I think I just vomitted in my mouth a little

However, in the last, 10 years or so the craft world has been reinventing itself.  I suppose it probably does this every generation, but the crafts of today are not our parent’s crafts.  My assumption is that many of the techniques have stayed the same such as knitting, some have been rediscovered, but there are also many new ones.  And on top of that the crafting world supplies and materials must have grown exponentially and the quality has gone way up for certain things.  There is also this underlying desire by many modern crafters to use materials that are sustainable, animal friendly, and unique.  And some even go as far as to create with some of these “forgotten” techniques and to complete the entire circle of the process.  For example, one may raise the sheep, spin the wool, dye it with natural products such as mushrooms, then knit to make the final product.  I can go on and on about this, partially because I am a crafter at heart and because I adore this closed circle process of sustainability.

So this brings me to my struggle because I do dream on a regular basis.  Ok, every hour of every day I dream about things I want to do and be.  I mean, is the grass really greener on the other side?  I guess you don’t know until you try.  And believe me when I get to a place where I can quit the humdrum of daily corporate life, I will, with no hesitation.  But in order to live in an urban area, there has to be some sort of income, at least for now.  Even if you had no debt, you still have to buy some things and pay for some utilities.  How much could you actually get by with?  And could I support myself with crafting?  It sounds good but is it realistic?  Well, one day I hope to find out.

If only my sis would move here and we could open up a store and sell etsy goods and make some of our own things.  Are their grants for stuff like this? I need to do more research.   In the meantime go check out the website.

~ by srhunnie on October 24, 2008.