Thursday, December 18, 2008

Shopping Local: Arlington Etsy artists

By Laura Evans

I’ll admit, I love to shop. But in a country where mass production and assembly line products rule the stores, it can be difficult to find those one-of-a-kind items with the handmade touch.

Etsy.com, built in 2005, is an online store where shoppers and artists can buy and sell their unique, handmade artworks and crafts. With over 200,000 artists, you can find anything and everything on this site. Dying for red vintage zipper slide studs? Or perhaps you've been searching for a medium size bird giving ball? Etsy's got it!

The best part is you can shop while supporting your local community. Just type in your city and state on the "shop local" page and up pops your local Etsy artisans. In this series I'll be going from town to town looking for local artists to feature, with the help of Etsy's shop local function.

Self-described as having a "wicked autodidactic streak," Regina Panzeca has always had an interest in learning new skills and crafts. She was taught needle pointing at an early age by her grandmother, and continued her love of textiles through to college where she studied textile arts with a focus in fashion design.

For the past year, Regina has been working full-time on her Etsy store, Little Cookie, where she sells her handmade kanzashi (traditional Japanese silk-flower hair ornaments typically worn by an apprentice geisha). She was first introduced to the art of kanzashi when she was little and her father would bring her gifts from his business travels to Japan. After falling in love with and teaching herself the Japanese art, she began selling her pieces on Etsy.

Regina gets her inspiration from nature and from traditional Japanase kanzashi works. Every single petal she uses is hand-dyed, hand-folded and hand-mounted by Regina, one at a time.

Regina also sells her products at various shopping and craft shows throughout the year, as well as Anime conventions. She also has an Etsy soap store, Soapopotamous, which consists of handcrafted goat's milk soap.

Scott and Anna Dykema are sharing their art with the community in more ways than one. They work by day on their decorative painting business Daydream Studios, and by night they create their paintings, photographs and greeting cards for their Etsy store, Daydreamers.

Scott is a painter and Anna is a photographer and illustrator. They met while studying art at the University of Texas in Arlington and soon after began their decorative painting business. Their Etsy store, Daydreamers, has allowed them to work on their more personal artwork while also making some extra cash.

The couple is inspired by the natural world, color, pattern, organic forms and animals. Scott works mainly with oil, mixed media and acrylic paint on canvas. Anna enjoys photography, illustration, and making Gocco prints. She also uses her photographs and illustrations and Scott's paintings as designs for their greeting cards.

Scott's work is also sold at Dulce in Dallas, and Anna's greeting cards are sold in the Mansfield boutique, Tessie's Attic.

An Etsy store that sells handmade cookies? My dreams have been answered!

Tina Finicum, stay-at-home mom/cookie master began baking and experimenting with different recipes and ingredients in 2002 when she left her day job as an insurance underwriter. While she enjoyed baking for friends and family, she wanted to gain a larger customer base and was introduced to Etsy in July 2008 where she began her store, Moonlighting Moms.

Some of the products in her virtual Etsy kitchen include Sugarlicious Cookies, Macadamia Nut Cookies, and Chocolate Florentines. Her recipes come from many different places and sources. Some are passed down from generation to generation in her family, some are recipes that she comes across from either her friends or family, and others are recipes she has fun tweaking, like the Cocoa Chocolate Chunk recipe which is a combination of two different recipes given to her by friends.

Tina likes to experiment with different flour and sugar blends to create unique yet tasty treats, and believe me, they are quite tasty. My favorite is the Chocolate Spearmint, but her most popular cookie, Frosted Cookies, are also quite scrumptious.

• Shopping Local: Dallas Etsy Artists
• Shopping Local: Fort Worth Etsy Artists

Related stories

• Shopping Local: Plano Etsy artists (Jan. 22, 2009)
• Pegasus News week in view: White Elephant edition (Dec. 18, 2008)

See more stories in:

• Arts and Crafts
• Fashion / Beauty
• Food and Drink > Dining / Restaurants
• Shopping

Comments

Stephanie Hindall Verified

This is great! Regina is an active and valuable member of Etsy Dallas and we are thrilled to see her profiled on Pegasus News.

Cheers, Stephanie "Tefi Designs" Hindall Etsy Dallas founder and leader www.etsydallas.com

10 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )