Amanda Fiandaca has always been crafty knitting and crocheting things as a hobby. It was her husband who encouraged her to try to make some money with her talents.
Gone are the days when the only way to show off and sell your homemade goods was at craft fairs in school gyms and cafeterias. Now, there are several sites on the Internet where people who can cook, sew, paint and otherwise create can find a marketplace for their wares.
Fiandaca, like many other local artisans, decided to take a shot at selling her stuff on Etsy.com, and in May, she launched Crooked by Design, which offers handbags, crocheted hats, clutches and more. While many stores on Etsy are specialized, selling something specific like glass jewelry, Fiandaca’s offerings are all over the map. When she started, she wasn’t sure how well that would go over.
“I was nervous because this is just something I do here and there,” she said. “But it really took off.”
Fiandaca, a stay-at-home mom from Schuylerville, has sold close to 70 items, with earwarmer headbands proving the most popular. She thinks people like the idea of supporting independent artisans “someone like me who’s just doing their craft.”
While Etsy lets Fiandaca reach shoppers all over the world, she and other sellers across the Capital District are always happy to work with local buyers. That eliminates shipping costs.
Laura Junco, who lives in Delmar, encourages people to contact her if they see something in her Etsy store that they like, and they can arrange to pick it up.
Like Fiandaca, Junco was a longtime hobbyist. When she first decided to sell her wares, she went the festival route, offering jewelry at Tulip Fest and Lark Fest years ago. Later, she tried selling crafts on eBay, but she had a hard time finding an audience there. Then more and more people started asking her if she had a shop on Etsy. “Not yet,” she would tell them, until last year she finally put one together.
Junco and her husband work full time for their business, FUNctionalArt4Kids. Etsy is only one facet of it; they travel to shows around the country and still man booths at local festivals. But Etsy is a great way to showcase the functional art they sell that’s geared toward kids. They sell desk caddies, jewelry holders, treasure boxes and wall art that’s ready to hang. There’s no glass on the wall art, since Junco said she’s always worried glass could fall and break.
Junco said they’ve found that parents like their items because they’re not just toys, and kids are drawn to the vibrant colors and functionality. The price point is also a selling point; Junco tries to keep everything under $20.
Christine Robinson’s Etsy offerings won’t break the bank, either. In her Sam’s Jams store, Robinson, of Schenectady, sells jams, jellies, baked goods, apple butter and pickles. An 8-ounce jar of bacon jam is $8; an 8-ounce jar of applesauce costs $5.
Robinson has received orders from all over the world since joining Etsy. Just last week, she shipped a package to Norway. She’s also sent her products to California, Florida and Massachusetts. That kind of reach is what she loves about Etsy.
“I couldn’t afford to pay for that kind of advertising,” she said.
Robinson, who started to make jams and jellies because she doesn’t like to waste anything, said she thinks she’s found a niche on Etsy because she offers unique products. She has Mountain Dew jelly and white chocolate raspberry with Kahlua, one of her most popular flavors.
Laurie McGill’s Etsy offerings are also a product of not wasting things. McGill has turned bottle caps into magnets, keychains and mores. She also sells jewelry, including glass pendants and earrings, in her believeinURdream store.
The first thing McGill ever sold was a stuffed witch’s boot that she called folk art. The woman who bought it contacted McGill afterward and asked if she could make another one so the woman would have a pair. Later, McGill made some ice skates that were similar fiber art, and the woman bought those. While it was great to have such a devoted customer, McGill realized that the fiber art was very time consuming, so she switched gears to the jewelry and decorative items, although she does still sell fiber arts around the holidays. It’s a way to get people into her store and have them see her other offerings, she said.
McGill said customers come to her “all different ways.” Her products are displayed at some local stores, including the Open Door Bookstore in Schenectady, and there are also people who hear about her through word of mouth. Etsy is another useful avenue to reach shoppers.
It’s also a way to bridge the past and the present. Fiandaca is a self-taught crafter, although her grandmother was a seamstress, “so it’s in my blood,” she joked. But back in her grandmother’s day, there certainly were no Internet sites were crafters could reach shoppers across the street as easily as around the globe.