Wednesday 2 September 2009

Of Etsy Goodness

Our flight isn't until 9.20 tonight (meaning we arrive in Rhodes at the ungodly hour of 3.20am - and then have the hour's drive to Lindos from the airport. The joy...), so I thought I would take a quick break from preparations to share my excitement over my first Etsy purchases. Etsy is a wonderful treasure trove of beautiful and unusual handcrafted and vintage items, on sale by talented people across the world (both of my buys came from the States, for example). If you aren't already familiar with it, I highly recommend a browse, although I warn you to have both time and credit card to hand, as it is all to easy to spend an afternoon getting tempted!

I have been thinking for some time about ordering some address labels, as I send a lot of cards and have always rather hankered after a pretty little label to call my own. Thus I was thrilled to find Nicole at Nature's Corridor, with her wonderful collection of labels, business cards, and other Good Things. Unfortunately, the Nature's Corridor shop has just closed, as Nicole moves across the pond to join us here in the UK, and according to her blog, she won't be re-opening for six months or a year. So I'm even more glad now that I bought these lovely labels when I did:



I couldn't choose between the two designs, so...! Well, it's always good to have variety...

On a wave of delight after finding my perfect address labels, I also invested in a wonderful set of 20 cards from Jen at MimiMuseDesigns. The cards are stunning and great value for money. I really recommend the box sets, where you can choose which designs you'd like included, and have them sent to you prettily wrapped up in ribbon. They'd make a delicious Christmas present. These are a couple of my favourites:


My Etsy experiences so far have been great - with amazing products and friendly sellers, and I think I'll definitely be doing a lot of my Christmas shopping on the site this year!

For now, however, I must dash. I arrive back in the UK a week on Thursday, but may not get the chance to blog properly again until I'm settled back in Oxford after the weekend. Until then, as I travel to a different part of the globe once more, I leave you with one of my favourite quotations from Sir W's Essayes, in which he stresses the difference between manuscript and print in the period (a fascinating subject) through this wonderful comparison. This is in fact the opening sentence to the first essay of the first part of the Essayes (from 1600), 'Of Resolution':

'The Worlde is a booke, the words and actions of men Commentaries vpon that volume: The former lyke manuscriptes priuate: the latter common; lyke things printed.'

No comments: