Thursday, November 20, 2008

Shopping Local: Fort Worth 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 a vintage filigree poodle ring? Or perhaps you've been searching for a sweeper sweater? Etsy's got it!

And 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.

Meet Crystal Ellis of Annie's Powder Room, a stay-at-home mom / home-school teacher / soap-maker. Whew, I'm tired just writing that! Five years ago when Crystal's husband started his own business she needed to come up with a little extra cash to help out around the house. After trying a variety of different crafts, she fell in love with soap making while taking a class at Homestead Heritage, a small farming community south of Waco.

Crystal began selling her soap packages on Etsy eight and a half months ago and has been busy busy ever since. Not only does she make great smelling soaps, but she has a little fun with them and gets creative with the concepts. Example products include the Army Men Soap, Christmas Soapsicles, and You've Been Naughty Coal Soap.

Her three girls Annie, Bella, and Lillian are her biggest inspiration, and they even help with the soap making process. Crystal's business also allows them to have a little fun with different homeschooling techniques; Crystal's youngest daughter learned her colors by helping her mother make soap!

Crystal's products are also sold in Brownstone Village in Arlington and Van Grow Studio in Fort Worth.

Ashley Akers' take on having a huge rock on your finger is a little more literal than most. Inspired by the natural world, Ashley looks to her garden for materials for her jewelry. She incorporates objects such as pebbles, semi-precious gemstones, polymer clay and sterling silver to create her unique and stunning jewelry designs.

Ashley comes from an artistic family, with her mother working as a fiber artist and her father working with wood. She graduated from the University of North Texas in 1999 with a BFA in jewelry and metal-smithing. She then moved to Fort Worth where she worked at Home to Garden for seven years, the source of inspiration for her pebble series.

Ashley began selling her jewelry on Etsy in November 2006. She took the big leap to working full-time on her jewelry business in the beginning of 2008.

Her work is also sold at Oxide Gallery in Denton and Art 251 in Keller.

Can't find what you're looking for? Well, make it yourself! That's how Jo & Rob Keyes ended up with their two Etsy stores, Phat Straps and Fido's Fashionable Collars.

When Jo & Rob Keyes first adopted their pooch they looked and looked for the perfect fashionable collar for their perfect medium-sized dog but wound up empty-handed. So Jo decided since she couldn't find anything she liked she would just make it herself! After learning how to sew from Rob, who learned from his mother while growing up, she soon found herself selling her collars on Ebay and Etsy. While photographing her many items for sale she soon found the camera strap she was using just wasn't doing it for her, so again she took the DIY approach. After perfecting her fashionable yet comfortable custom camera straps she began selling them on Etsy in January 2008.

After a boom in business Rob was able to retire from the Air Force and work full-time for the businesses, and Jo works full-time for American Airlines while working after hours on the business.

Myles Trigo has combined his love of screen-printing and cycling to create his Etsy store Rat Trap Press. Named after a type of bicycle pedal, Rat Trap Press is Trigo's line of cycling-related screen-printed t-shirts.

Myles had always wanted to make his own t-shirts and began screen-printing for fun five years ago with a screen-printing kit and the book "Screen Printing for Fun and Profit." After much trail and error, he perfected his technique and started up his Etsy store in September 2007. He now prints with professional screen-printing equipment in his one-car garage.

His shirt designs are simple yet modern elegant graphics of bicycles and cycling components such as cranksets, derailleurs and track grupos. Myles uses Photoshop to convert photographs and diagrams into designs, and also works with graphic artists such as Justin of the Etsy store Triplemilled in Baltimore.

Myles has been a state employee for 19 years and hopes to someday do screen-printing full-time.

There are tons of local sellers in Fort Worth, and while I am only able to feature a few of them, I encourage you to check out who else is creating and selling in Fort Worth on Etsy.com or any other site you find. And don't forget this weekend is the 1st Annual Etsy Dallas Jingle Bash at Sons of Hermann Hall.

• Shopping Local: Dallas Etsy Artists

Related stories

• Shopping Local: Plano Etsy artists (Jan. 22, 2009)
• Shopping Local: Arlington Etsy artists (Dec. 18, 2008)

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