Etsy Brings Capitol Hill Crafts Worldwide

Photo courtesy of Beth Baldwin

I shop online — a lot — so I get my fair share of daily marketing emails, from West Elm to Lands’ End. But there is one email I look forward opening: Etsy Finds, a daily guide to the best of Etsy.com. Whether the email is focused on a specific theme — tennis, forbidden love, summer cottages on the Cape — or simply the best Etsy items an editor can find, I am hooked on the site that offers the craftiest and coolest items from crafters around the world and right here on the Hill. So I set out to learn more about the world of Etsy and crafting from some of the Hill’s best crafters.

Etsy, conceived of and created by Rob Kalin, Chris Maquire and Haim Schoppik in 2005, set out to offer buyers and sellers a place to find handmade or vintage items online. Today, the site is home to more than 400,000 sellers and more than 4.6 million members from 150 countries around the world who have purchased more than $85.1 million in merchandise in 2010 — nearly exceeding, in four months time, the total sales in 2008.

Karen Kormondy of Capitol Hill sees crafting as a natural extension of her professional life as an upholsterer. When not working, she has her hands in almost every kind of craft — from knitting, sewing and quilting to painting and decoupage — and she sees Etsy as the perfect place for independent crafters like Kormondy to sell their wares without having to be independently wealthy or technologically savvy.

“You don’t have to build your own e-commerce site” to sell crafts online, says Kormandy, who is always looking for new ways to incorporate Capitol Hill places and themes into her crafts. “Etsy’s listing fees are low and the time that the item is listed is a few months, which is not the case with, say, eBay.”

While Eastern Market is the center of life on the Hill for most residents, Kormondy chooses to sell her handmade goods on Etsy rather than at Eastern Market or local fairs.

“Eastern Market’s table fees are too rich for my blood,” says Kormondy, “as are most outdoor markets. Often times at $50 and up.” And with some special events asking for more than $200 for a table, the internet is often the best way to get great goods without a mark-up.

However, Beth Baldwin, who moved to the Hill in 1998 and recently returned from a seven-year stay in Penn Branch, is excited for the day that she gets to sell her array of dolls made from recycled wool sweaters at Eastern Market. Until then, you can find her owls, squirrels, narwhals, whales and just about any other animal you can think to ask for online at Etsy.

“I’ve also started playing around with making townhouse style pillows. There’s so much great architecture on the Hill to be inspired by,” says Baldwin.

So when that mid-week urge to hit Eastern Market to shop for crafts takes over, visit Etsy to see what our Hill crafters have to offer.