I hope you are all familiar with Etsy, the global online marketplace where crafts people (myself included) can sell their handmade items. I love selling my items through Etsy, it feels so good to know that mantelpieces all over the world have my handmade cards on them, or that people (that I don’t know in real life) are using bags, needle cases or pincushions that I have made! You can find my Etsy shop here.

If you’ve never explored Etsy them I recommend you take a peek, when I’m looking for a gift that I can’t make myself then I always check out what my fellow Etsy sellers have on offer, you can get such lovely unique items.

This year Etsy have launched The Etsies! A design award to celebrate the work of some of the outstanding crafts people who sell via the Etsy platform. I was looking through the finalists for the awards and have picked out a few items that really took my fancy or caught my attention to share with you.

Update: none of my picks were winners I’m afraid, but I still stand by all my favourites! If you want to see the winners you can find them here: Etsy design award winners.

Click through any of these photos to go straight to the item on Etsy (affiliate links)

This gorgeous little typewriter calendar from Sky Goodies is a digital download, so you get it right away in your email inbox and print and assemble your calendar at home. Not only is it super cute when made up, you could give just the print out as a great gift for anyone you know who enjoys crafts themselves, paper construction, origami or that sort of thing. Once you’ve bought the PDF download you can print it as many times as you like which means it’s good value too. It could be great for teacher gifts, or if you run a club of some sort and want a lots of gifts that are all the same for participants.

Talking of calendars, German company Wi-La-No make a beautiful pastel wall planner printed on 100% recycled carbon neutral paper. It is in German on one side and English on the other, wouldn’t it look great in a home office? It was the 2019 edition that one the design award but as we are more than half way through 2019 I figure you’d be more interested in seeing the 2020 version! They have a fabulous rainbow brights version too.

We all know that bees need our help a little more these days, as the work this year of the Make a Beeline campaign has highlighted. Popping a bee hotel, like this one from Wuddl, in your garden would help the bees and look sweet too. It comes in 5 different colours but I think this yellow is my favourite.

We all know a person who is impossible to buy a gift for, you know the friend who already has everything! Well I bet they don’t have a hand drawn cartoon fridge magnet of themselves! Kit Atlas also does pets too. Wouldn’t a set of two be a fun wedding present for the couple with everything?

These decorations from Mishiu Ferris are listed as Christmas baubles but I think could work with decor all year round, the wooden leaf is personalisable too. Very classy!

I’ve been following Baked by Lou on Instagram for a while so I’ve been an admirer of her lovely quirky earrings for some time. They are all totally handmade so each piece is slightly different and therefore unique.

Way back in the 80’s we used to like to fancy up our shoelaces, switching them for a bright neon, threading them in fancy ways, attaching charms or even drawing on them. Nowadays you can jazz up your laces with these lace locks from Lolita Picco. They have several other designs and a fun selection of pin badges too.

Last but by absolutely no means least, check out these gorgeous little houses from Maisie Parks Design. Maisie makes the most adorable little clay houses and then illustrates them in the cutest way. She even offers to make your own house or special building for you with a custom order.

I’ve had such fun looking through the amazing finalists for the Etsy Design Awards, good luck to them all. The items I’ve picked to showcase tend to be the more affordable, smaller items but Etsy is also a place to find one of a kind furniture, works of art and top end jewellery. You can see the rest of the Design Award finalists here.