New Resource for Doll Makers

I have just received notice about the new Handmadeology Market. It is not a storefront, but it is a promotional opportunity to showcase your art works that are for sale at other online storefronts, like Etsy or Meylah, or directly from your own website.

From the email:
"The Handmadeology Market is not another selling venue, it is a live market place to show off your items.  Items added to the market are only live for 90 days, so the content it kept fresh! Sellers from across the web can list their items and link back to the items in their shops and websites. We welcome sellers from all sites and ones that have their own site.  There are no transactions happening here in the market.  Potential buyers can click through to your items and even contact you through the contact form.

Our new market is directly connected to Handmadeology and we will be utilizing our social media network and readership to get exposure for the sellers that list their items. "

I plan to put my dolls and paper crafts on the marketplace, and hope to see an uptick in traffic to my store. I'm not sure I'm very happy with the new "Browse" search paradigm on Etsy, which seems to favor jewelry and handbags, so anything that brings new eyes to my products is welcome. I plan to try the free version first, but closer to holidays, when I have some new pretty dolls, I may opt in to the $5 advertisement.

Has anyone listed yet? Have you noticed any increase in traffic?

Blooming Peg Dolls

Author and puppeteer, Margaret Bloom, hosted a peg doll trade. She documented the dear little dolls and sweet stories from all over the world on her blog. You say "peg doll", I see Kokeshi. There are gnomes and geisha and fairies, oh my. If you click on "puppets" in her tag cloud, you will see the sweet puppets and stories she has made.

She also has a book about making peg dolls. She describes them as perfect for children to make. I agree.

Etsy Paper Doll Workshop

There is a cool doll related Etsy Lab coming up: Etsy Hands-On: Letterpress Puppets. It's printing, then decorating and embellishing articulated paper dolls. Unfortunately for me, living in California, the event is in Brooklyn, NY. on Tuesday, October 23rd. The good news? There will be a livestream demo.

The lab is being facilitated by Etsy seller, Crankbunny.

Doll Essence

Tatiana Tofeneto of Doll Essence has a gorgeous website. I especially love her lengthy pictorial description of her process for creating her ball jointed porcelain doll design from a polymer clay pure sculpt - under the About tab. You can click the images for a slide show, and it is all very efficiently organized. The dolls are delicately painted and beautifully costumed.

Sandi Mastroni Creepy Cute

This month being Halloween, it seems apropos to features some creepy/cute and witchy/goblin type doll artists. One of these, who has a lot of cute along with her creepy, is Connecticut folk artist, Sandi Mastroni.

She has a blog (scroll down to see some pics of her cat with an array of dolls displayed behind) and a nice Etsy store that features Mermaids, creepy clowns and pumpkin paper dolls. Her cloth dolls don't have hands and they don't have necks, but they do have highly detailed hand painted faces and a lot of personality.

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