Etsy meeting in Tallinn
The Estonian Etsy Team is a group of very social people that communicates a lot through our Facebook group. There isn’t a day when something new doesn’t get brought up. To bring this communication to the next level we decided that it’s time to meet up in real-life as well and check each other out.
The meeting took place on the 23rd of April and Mari-Liis Makus, owner of Klaasimari glass studio in Tallinn, kindly offered her space for the evening. Thanks to that, we conjured up an awesome evening filled with creativity and great people.
So, who was there?
Wool4Art
Etsy shop
Hiie loves felting, cats and drinking tea. Mostly because of that she’s mastered the art of creating beautiful nest-like homes for cats. Her felted nests are round, soft and create this tingling sensation inside that makes you want to go and get a cat that would purr in it. She also has a selection of teapot warmers in her Etsy shop.
Hiie has been running her shop in Etsy for about a year and a couple of months and has around 40 sales already. Most interest and sales towards her shop comes from the USA.
Hiie loves felting, cats and drinking tea. Mostly because of that she’s mastered the art of creating beautiful nest-like homes for cats. Her felted nests are round, soft and create this tingling sensation inside that makes you want to go and get a cat that would purr in it. She also has a selection of teapot warmers in her Etsy shop.
Hiie has been running her shop in Etsy for about a year and a couple of months and has around 40 sales already. Most interest and sales towards her shop comes from the USA.
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| Hiie’s teapot warmers on the picture, Mari-Liis Makus, our hostess for the evening, on the background. |
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| Hiie on the background and on the foreground we have Riina with her manbaby! |
RianasBarbieCloset
Etsy shop
Etsy shop
Riina, the owner of RianasBarbieCloset shop in Etsy, kickstarted her story by telling us where the first Barbie came from. Surprisingly, her first Barbie-doll was given to her on her 18th birthday by her parents! At first she didn’t really know what to do with the doll but as in life, all things happen for a reason, years later Riina discovered that it’s quite a lot of fun crocheting miniature clothes for her and her little relatives’ Barbie-dolls and from there on it became her hobby and a source of income.
HelloMrApril
Maria brought with her a bunch of different wooden brooches and a huge moose head coat rack. The brooches feature very different quirky characters, laughing bears, cats, wolves and other creatures that she has painted herself and then printed on her products.
Maria has had just a couple of sales in Etsy but in an ideal world she’d
love it when the shop would have a regular inflow of customers. She’s currently
working on making that happen.
Greenika
Etsy shop
Greenika started making jewelry about 4 years ago, when she stayed at home with her first baby. Nowadays he jewelry-making hobby has taken over her day-to-day life as much as her a stay-at-home mom role allows her. Next to two children she spends all her free time working on creative things. Her jewelry is featured in a local handcrafting store, Misu, and she also has a working e-shop.
Etsy shop
Greenika started making jewelry about 4 years ago, when she stayed at home with her first baby. Nowadays he jewelry-making hobby has taken over her day-to-day life as much as her a stay-at-home mom role allows her. Next to two children she spends all her free time working on creative things. Her jewelry is featured in a local handcrafting store, Misu, and she also has a working e-shop.
She started with more simple jewelry, like many others, but has developed
her own unique style that she’s known for... feminine and romantic.
TuuliK, Beauty and Soul
Etsy shop
Tuuli had such a great story about the way she got started and how she works on her jewelry at home in her kitchen trying to cook at the same time.
TuuliK, Beauty and Soul
Etsy shop
Tuuli had such a great story about the way she got started and how she works on her jewelry at home in her kitchen trying to cook at the same time.
She’s a multi-talent that makes everything herself from beginning to end.
She’s known for her beautiful silver-jewelry that’s combined with semiprecious
stones, but she also works with a lot of other materials: porcelain and crystal
resin for instance.
Once her piece of jewelry is ready she also creates a worthy box for it.
She’s learned all her skills on her own and as a fun fact, she’s actually a
bookkeeper in her day-to-day life!
SylphDesigns
Etsy shop
Etsy shop
Kaisa is a very open-minded and outspoken young lady that talked enthusiastically about her jewelry and with even greater passion about design. She’s created a very unique brand – Sylph Designs - for her quirky, geeky and colorful jewelry. It consists of a logo, packaging, and tags that have a beautiful look and feel to them.
She also shared an interesting story about her first Etsy wholesale order
of 50 pairs of earrings to UK. In her words, first it made her weak to her
knees, but after taking it on everything went really well and the order was
ready to go in lightning speed.
As Kaisa has a „real“ job aside from Sylph Designs shop she emphasized that
for her selling her jewelry on Etsy is more of a fun thing and she doesn’t yet
have any grand plans with the business. With that said though... it’s apparent
that she’s put a lot of time and thought in making sure her jewelry is one to remember.
Monique Disain
Facebook page
Monica took her brooches, rings and earrings with her. She’s using Fimo polymer clay as the basis for her jewelry and incorporates her own drawings into the brooches and rings. One can find women, animals and mystical themes from these drawings.
Facebook page
Monica took her brooches, rings and earrings with her. She’s using Fimo polymer clay as the basis for her jewelry and incorporates her own drawings into the brooches and rings. One can find women, animals and mystical themes from these drawings.
Monica told her story with Etsy that resulted in her creating a shop and
forgetting about it for a while. By now, the shop has disappeared and she’s no
longer working on it. Right now she’s preparing and stocking up for the summer
season fairs to sell her stuff there instead.
Klaasimari
Etsy shop
Etsy shop
Our wonderful hostess Mari-Liis welcomed us in her studio that was filled with her creations. It was exciting to look around and see all those colorful pieces of jewelry that she had created.
Mari-Liis spoke about her artwork through the years and shared stories on
how she got to where she is right now. She started working with glass in 1997
already and nowadays she’s busy organizing glass workshops and teaching her
skills to other interested people.
Smistel
Etsy shop
Etsy shop
Kristel has tried out many different styles but one word that describes all of her jewelry attempts is: Colors. Her jewelry is bright and colorful. Since making jewelry is quite a time consuming hobby, she’s currently more invested in her daily job, at least for the time being.
Newbies in the house
There were a couple of newbies as well in the crowd as it was a Newbie Lab
as well after all. Greenika took her friend Tiiu with her who also does hand
crafted goods and has creative outlets. We hope that our stories made her want
to open up a shop in Etsy soon as well.
Lessons learnt
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| A group picture, not everyone's visible |
I’d say one of the most interesting parts of the evening was not just the introduction round but the conversations that sprung out of those introductory rounds. We talked about our earlier sales experiences and how hard it is to get your creations on sale in physical shops instead of the virtual ones. One of the most common pain points were the extra charges that each shop puts on top of the original price making the piece of jewelry ridiculously expensive. This however forces the artist to make a decision either to sell their things a little cheaper (getting no income) to ensure a reasonable price for the customer or to sell their things on their own.
There was also a lot of talk about selling experiences at fairs and where the next upcoming big fairs take place. One that was mentioned was the Hanseatic Fair that takes place in different bigger Estonian cities once per year. Next fair that takes place already in May is happening in Tallinn and is called the Days of Kalamaja. Greenika shared that sales-wise she did very well last year at this event.
Then there was a lot of talk about the DESIGN of things and that one should not underestimate it. A design that has been well prepared and thought through adds a lot to a product, which is especially important when trying to do sales in Etsy or at local fairs. Having a unique design can be one of those things that make you stand out from the vast amount of shops and sellers in Etsy.
The group also shared tips and tricks on how to coax and woo people into their Etsy shop to make more sales. It was mentioned that it’s important to be a great communicator, open-minded, helpful and ready to customize your product. It also helps to be active in the Etsy groups. On the other hand, everyone agreed that they haven’t yet seen a connection between being active and not being active in Etsy. When you’re starting out it doesn’t really seem to make a difference in sales.
And last but not least, some of us had interesting stories on how their work had been copied. Together we came to the consensus that there’s not much that can be done about it and it should be taken like a compliment when someone finds your stuff so great that it makes them copy it.
The evening was a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone that came and to Mari-Liis for hosting us in her cozy little studio. I’m sure this won’t be the last time this group of people meets!
