Friday, July 11, 2008

The vintage seller's alter ego

Vintage sellers are a creative lot. Even if they aren't directly involved in arts and crafts, they have "the eye." They have a finely honed aesthetic sense, able to pick out the wonderful lost in a sea of the mediocre and just awful.

Many of them, however, are also artist and artisans in their own right. I've found that a number of vintage sellers on Etsy have another shop where they sell hand-made items (often made with vintage components), or they carry a mixture of handmade and vintage within one shop. Here are just a few of the secret lives revealed (I'll highlight more in a later blog post).

AmbrosianBeads is run by Carol Holmes, the owner of RetroThreads. (You can see an interview with Carol on the Etsy Vintage Street Team blog.)

HerRoyalMajestyBags and SurrenderDorothy are products of the same creative mind.

backhomeagain is the crafty counterpart to 300nmulberry.

artsfarm combines vintage items with hand-crafted accessories, jewelry, and art in one shop.

Finally, AuntiePrincess moonlights as lamplighter, creator of extraordinary Victorian lampshades.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much Susan. You forgot to mention yourself! No one does vintage button creations better than you...

LuAnn @ Back Home Again

Callooh Callay said...

Aw, thanks so much, LuAnn.

SarahKelley said...

Nice post! I'm more familiar with Carol (ambrosionbeads) awesome beadwork than her vintage shop, but it's nice to know her range:)

Melody Marie Murray said...

Wow, there's a whole other side to Carol- I knew she was an insanely talented beader, but it's great to read more about Carol as well as the other vintage sellers featured here. Thanks for the great post!

Anonymous said...

Interesting post. I love vintage:)