Happy Earth Day - SFEtsy Makers Use a Variety of Eco Friendly Materials to Produce Amazing Things

It's Earth Day! Our SFEtsy team is proud to have many wonderful makers that are creating responsibly using reclaimed, recycled and earth-freindly materials in some or all of their handmade goods.

Join me as we celebrate the SFEtsy Earth Conscious Makers of 2015!

Kyla O'Neill of Impressed by Nature
Beautiful Natural Botanical Jewelry

Dorothy Reinhardt of Dorothy Designs
Using Upcycled Materials and Buttons to Create Beautiful Floral Accessories

Bronwen Mauch Tireless Hearts Studio
Upcycled Jewelry and Accessories Made from Bike Inner Tubes

Yin Yin Wu Of LoveGem Studio 
Featuring Recycled Silver Jewelry

Heather Simoni of Heathered
Eco-Friendly Wallets and Accessories

Kati Jackson of Crow Woodcraft
Reclaimed Wood Jewelry and Buttons

Cheyenne Barr of Deconstruction Crafts
Sustainable Goods 

Ayse Kozaci Jewelry
Recycled Paintbrush Jewelry 

IOGoods
Sustainable Clothing for Women & Children

Basmati Bags
Bags Made from Upcycled Materials

Lisa Spinella of Tickle and Smash
Totes and Handbags Made from Upcycled Materials

Tawny Reynolds of Sundrop Jewelry
Jewelry Created from Recycled Glass with the Power of the Sun

Creek Van Houten of Compass Rose Design
Steampunk Upcycled and Found Object Jewelry & Accessories

Rebecca Saylor of OodleBaDoodle
Reclaimed Material Pillows that Make the World More Huggable

Jacob of .retool
Bags, Wallets and Accessories Made from Seatbelts

Trish Peach of PoppyPeach
Fashion Accessories Created from Repurposed Materials

Lizette De Arkos of LDay Shop
Upcycled Clothing and Home Decor

Laura and Julien Sheilds of Yes&Yes Designs
Jewelry and Accessories Made from Books

Jeannine Komush of Tangleweeds
Using Reclaimed Leather in Her "Leaf-Petal" Lariats and Earrings

Sarah Montes Friedman of BirdBags
Using Reclaimed Textiles to Make Stylish Bags and Accessory Cases

Lisa Jones of Miss Match 
Found Material Jewelry

Fleurette Sevin of Fleurette Artglass
Jewelry Made from Upcycled Glass and Bullet Casings

Alissa Anderson of Mitten Maker 
Upcycled Accessories

Marja Germans Gard of Lemonade Handmade

Recycled gold & silver jewelry making

Dana Trousil of Boii Studio
Reclaimed clay ceramics

Emily Oinen of Clever Hands
Reclaimed Rubber Journal Bandoliers 

Kathryn Hedges of Splendid Colors
Reclaimed Cardboard Holiday Steampunk Ornaments

Candice of Candid Art & Accessories
Upcycled and Found Object Jewelry

Tarabud Design
Repurposed leather Accessories

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, visit Our Team Page about joining SFEtsy!

Creative Places to Inspire Your Next Steps: Local Take

Over the next few months we will be highlighting creative places, spaces and people in an effort to take your business to the next level. I'm so honored to have been able to interview our very own Jenn of Local Take about her adorable shop in The Castro. Local Take has been a huge HUGE advocate for everything SFEtsy and it seemed fitting to make this shop our first stop in this series: Creative Places to Inspire Your Next Steps.

Have you been thinking of doing consignment of your items in a local shop? The focus of this interview was about how Jenn and her business partner, Kyra, find local items for their shop & how one might submit their work for consideration. 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE your love for San Francisco inspired pieces. What are three of your favorite pieces that you sell in your store right now?
-Water/ jet cut aluminum Sutro Tower from Studio For Metropolitan Craft
-Deconstructed jackets by Ghetto Goldilocks
-Seatbelt wallets by .retool.

I love that you support so many small companies like Todos Organics of Berkley. Tell me how you discover these small companies!

However and where ever we can!  Originally, Etsy, Open Studios and street fairs were our most successful ways to find new local designers.  These days we keep quite busy with designers finding us and reaching out. We still try to go to all the  street fairs and Open Studios to support our current designers!

If a small business wanted to be considered to sell in your shop, what's the process and what steps would they take?
We take all product submissions via email.  Send us an email, introduce yourself, explain what you do, include retail price points and pictures.  If we think its a good fit, we'll invite you in to meet us and take a look at your product. Please, please, please do not bring unsolicited product into the store for us to look at or try to show us pictures on your phone. We want to set aside time specifically for you so we can focus on what you do.  We always recommend that designers stop by the store to make sure its a good fit for them before submitting work. And when you do, by all means say hello!

You have a keen eye for great finds, but you also have a great business mind. If you could give a small business some sound advice, what is the most important lesson you learned when you shifted from a maker to a shop owner?
Nothing will ever be 'perfect'.  You just gotta go for it!  The best way to learn is from your mistakes. Things change, and so does your perspective.  You can only get to the final draft after you've completed the first draft.

When doing research on a small company for your space, how important is an online presence to you? How important is an Etsy shop, Facebook or website?
It's important for us to see examples of the product before we invite a designer for a face to face.  There are lots of products that aren't quite right for our space in our neighborhood, so we don't want to waste anyone's time.  However, having an online presence isn't as important as being able to show us pictures via email.

You are also a maker - how do you best balance your creative soul with your business?

Balance? Ha! Seriously though, every day we have to make the decision to feed our creative souls or crunch numbers.  Luckily for us, we try to bring creativity into every part of our business so everyday is a good balance of both.

SFEtsy, as you know, is centered around the importance of community. How do you participate in your local community & how has that positively influenced your own small business and/or your work as a maker?

In addition to running a business in the Castro, we also try to keep our personal lives as much in the 'hood as possible. We regularly visit other stores just to say hi, we introduce ourselves to new businesses, we get lunch almost every day, we meet friends for dinner/drinks after hours, etc.  We also participate in the many different Castro events and fundraisers, and are members of the local merchant's group.  Meeting new people in the neighborhood and reaching out to other businesses reminds them that we exist in the neighborhood. Then they come shop with us and recommend us to their other customers.

 
Thanks again to Jenn and Kyra for hanging out with me for an afternoon 
and answering so many questions! 

Local Take is located in The Castro at 3979B 17th st, SF 94114
for up to date events and hours, visit their Facebook Page. 

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, visit Our Team Page about joining SFEtsy!

Etsy Treasury Challenge: Be Mine for Valentine's Day

Treasury Challenge Theme: Valentine's Day - Be Mine

To Participate:

• Please include all SF Etsy team members within the treasury (find them with the tag "SFetsy" or SFetsy Team" on Etsy) . You can also search the team member list .
• Find a song or poem that inspired you to make your treasury related to the valentine theme. Please include in either the description or comments of the treasury.
• In the description or first comment, link back to our Blog - or our Facebook Fan Page 
• Please tag your treasury on Etsy itself with the full text "SFetsy Team" or "SFEtsy" so we can find the treasuries that are made on Etsy.  
• We will post and feature all the Team Treasuries we find to try and get you the highest number of favorites, shares, comments, and clicks ever ! Plus we will post them all on the SFETSY blog before Valentine's Day.  Meanwhile, tell us how your sharing your treasury via social media by using the tag #SFETSY!
• Do message your featured SFEtsy sellers to inform them that they are in your team treasury and share your treasury in the SFEtsy team google group, as well as your own social media to spread your story!

 It's wonderful getting to know each other better this way, so please do chat in the comments, share our amazing community and lets get trending!!!  We want to Feel The LOVE!

Here is an example and link to mine to start!

In Spite of Ourselves - A Love Story
by Tickle And Smash

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, visit Our Team Page about joining SFEtsy!

Tuestorial - BOMB Stress AWAY!

Once a week I take 45 minutes to exit the stress of my week...
I set myself up a soothing bath...grab the latest DIY magazine and (most times) bring a cup of tea, or a beer, or a glass of wine in the bathroom with me. (or all three...ha ha)
It's my once a week ritual that has been helping to keep my stress from eating up my creative soul.

This all started when I went to Lush with my Mom a while back...but at over $5 per bath bomb or bubble bath...I just couldn't keep up with the cost of my baths. So...I decided to learn how to make my own aromatherapy baths. I also wanted to make something that was good for the environment...it's nice to know that what goes down the drain after my bath won't hurt the environment.

Making them is SUPER easy...so easy, that Sunday night I made a half dozen of these with my boyfriend's daughter who is 6 years old. She is very excited about taking baths this week. I guess if your kids hate taking baths - you could try to do this to get them a little more pumped about gettin' in the tub.

Finding the ingredients in San Francisco...surprisingly NOT easy (for me) so I did write down some tips for finding all of the bits and pieces here in San Francisco...which hopefully will help you out wherever you are.

Recipe:
1 cup Baking Soda (This is what will make it fizzy)
1/2 cup Citric acid
1/2 cup Corn Starch
2 Tablespoons Witch Hazel
3/4 tablespoon water
2 teaspoons Essential oils
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
3 drops food coloring (optional)

Here's how I did it.
Put all the dry ingredients in one medium size bowl
put all the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
combine the two once measured...

put your mixture into molds. Fill the mold all the way up and then press down firmly to make sure the mixture is solid and will not crumble once dry.

keep your molds out of reach of yourself for a few days...then release from the molds and put into an air tight container for use later!

To use: fill up your bath with water... drop in a few bombs and watch them fizz away all the stress of your day.

TIPS!

- Finding the molds shouldn't be an issue...but if you want something Fun... you can make a bunch of mini bombs in those crazy rubber ice-cube molds that come in every shape you'd ever want.

- Pay attention to the details of the recipe: Normally, I'm the lazy kind of DIYer and I usually just dump everything in all at the same time...but since this recipe really is combining chemicals together...I take the separation of dry and wet a lot more seriously. I don't want to fizzle out my fizz by putting the wet ingredients in too quickly.

- What if your bombs never set in the molds and they crumble all over the place? NO worries! Thing is...you could just put all the good stuff you made above and just put it all in an air tight container if you wanted pretty much...spooning it into your bath instead of pressing it into a mold will work just lovely as well. Don't you worry...you'll be fine. However, if you're gifting these...perfecting the molds is a plus. I bought some cloth bags for cheap which make great companions to the bombs.

- Finding Citric Acid - the hardest to find. This was the hardest thing to find for me. the recipe I had found said that you could get this at any craft store or drug store. no...no you can't. But then someone said to me that citric acid is in foods, so I should try a food supply place. The light bulb went off. I ended up purchasing it at San Francisco Brewcraft. I got 5 pounds of it and when I got home I felt so silly since you only need 1/2 a cup. ha! If anyone needs any...I have some extra to go around, clearly.

- Essential Oils and you! A while back I found this gem of a place called The San Francisco Herb company. You know all those bulk teas you see in stores? Yeah...they pretty much all come from here. So knock out the middle man and check out this place. I got my essential oils from here because if you're a business, they GIVE YOU A DISCOUNT! Hollar at my money saving techniques...what what! ha ha... but really...they have pretty much all of the oils you'd want to see there since they also have pretty much anything you'd want to put in a killer potpourri. For just under $20 I got myself some vanilla, peony, jasmine, honeysuckle and spearmint. I have been able to use my oils many MANY times since then...a little goes a long way.

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!

Treasury Tuesday - Craving a Mint Julep by the Seaside

'Refreshing Mint with a touch of Sea Foam' by nerdJERK

My recent obsession with all things sea foam green & mint julep led me to concoct a treasury to quench my thirst for these hues. However, after putting this together, I've realised that my need is insatiable! Hope you enjoy this minted up mix.

BellaBeadsOrig... $87.00	claylicious $45.00	boundbyhand $31.00	ThisCharmingCa... $20.00
vitamini $15.00	teenytinyenvel... $6.00	soradesigns $52.50	photopia $18.00
baileybowls $60.00	AndreaFuentesD... $40.00	SinceSass $15.00	punkrawkpurl $12.00
amerrymishap $19.99	BugUnderGlass $39.99	EarthCultured $9.75	newsprout $80.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

I don't know how often this happens to you guys, but I get cravings. And lately, since I've been meetings so many people from our beloved SF Etsy Street Team in real life (see LightboxSF's post to get a feel for what I mean), it's been sparking this need for something new.

Summertime is upon us in the Bay Area and while it never truly feels like summer without a ton of sunshine, we are incredibly lucky to be a city by the sea. During especially foggy days, I tend to enjoy meandering long the shore, gazing off into the hues of minty green & jade, wondering what lies beyond the foam.

That doesn't mean to say I don't miss the sunshine (PSST: Secret alert! I totes love sunshine)! However, it just goes to show that I love making the best out of what we've got right in front of us.

So may I propose a mint julep by the seaside? :)

Lots of new SF Etsy Members are showcased along our tried & true friends. Please feel free to share this treasury with anyone you feel wants to make to most out of a foggy day by the bay.

Love, Steph

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!