Introducing Pleiades Studio

Fantastic artist Itsuko from Garden of Spirits has opened a shop on Etsy to make available her wonderful landscapes in oil pastels.

Watches from Osaka

Osaka Tokei is a new seller to Etsy who can personalise watches from your own designs or photographs. Tick Tock!

New members in Etsy Japan Team.

Welcome to Yumi of Katoo and Yuki of barefootshepherdess.

At Katoo you can find interesting bags and pouches of excellent design. I really like the persimmon pouch with three zippers. (please note, Katoo is on vacation until July)




The barefootshepherdess dyes fibres and yarns ready for knitting or felting. Yuki is using natural plant dyes to achieve beautiful colours.



This yarn is silk and wool dyed with safflower petals.

Please look at their shops and blogs and welcome these new Etsians.

Lena Sekine - new member

Lena Sekine lives in California, having moved to the States from Japan when just one year old. Her designs are very fresh and charming. "My inspiration naturally comes from my Japanese background, and also I use materials like Japanese vintage parts and pieces, Miyuki beads from Japan, and also Yuzen/washi paper to create my adornments."

Welcome to tidabeads

The Japan Team has a new member in Tokyo; tidabeads.

Here's how Kayo describes her shop:

"Here is a place to show my creativity and beautiful Japanese culture.
Most of my works are made by Kimono Fabrics. Some of them are vintage. It shows us fabulous texture and color. I don't see many Japanese who wear Kimono anymore in our daily life, but I wondered how come we are not showing its beauty to the world. We accept western culture, and I like it, but Japanese culture should be expanded more and more."

Check out her wonderful accessories and see how she is using fabric as jewellery.

Welcome to some new members.

Some new members based in Tokyo have joined the Etsy Japan team recently.

Cresusartisanat is a knitter, crocheter and rug-maker with an atelier in Edogawa-ku. Her recycled materials 'shikaku rug' was featured in a Storque article recently. Isn't it wild!


Junkhousedollyard makes very directional women's clothing with edge. It's great to see strong, fresh clothing design on Etsy.



Rubens Kinjo is a Brazilian artist/illustrator who lives in Saitama but is very active in Tokyo with his sketchbook and camera. He is planning to introduce a new line of work in his Etsy shop this year.

Welcome to Washi Urushi

Well, it took me the better part of a year to cajole my best friend Masaki (AKA Max) into the merits of setting up an etsy site for his artwork.

I struggled with the etsy staff because they did not want to allow me to do this. But after seeing other stores doing the exact same kind of thing (i.e. one person makes the art, another makes the store) I decided to just do it.

Finally today I got the store up and running, and listed nine of their pieces of art. They have hundreds, and pretty much do everything on a custom order basis, but I convinced them to lend me some cheaper, and medium-priced pieces of their art to start with.

Please feel free to visit and link to "WashiUrushi" on Etsy, or maybe you can copy and paste this link: http://www.washiurushi.etsy.com.

If you have any suggestions as to where I might be able to get their site a "shout out", or any other advice, please do let me know! Thanks for your support.

I love you!

CamSwitzer

an Introduction

Hi,

I am Jo and still quite new to Etsy.

A bit of background, I am a Brit, married to a Japanese chap and I have been in Japan for 9.5 years and before that I worked and travelled quite a bit.

I opened a shop last September with a hope that I can earn money and stay at home with my son without going back to teaching English.

I have always been a crafty gal and currently rubber stamp carving along with sewing seems to be my thing. I am still trying to figure out what sells well on Etsy which also fits well with my life-style. It is like some strange manic balancing act and as Etsy is supposed to be a way for me to make money I feel that I have to think as a business woman not as an artist and that is not an easy thing to do.

If you are interested and want to read my waffle I have a blog here.

It is lovely to find some fellow Etsians in Japan and thank you to Meeabee for getting in touch, I hope 2009 is a fab year for all of us.

bikudesigns

My name is Victoria Close and I have been selling on Etsy for a couple of months and shopping for a few months longer. I live in Meguro-ku in Tokyo and have been in Japan for almost 12 years (give or take a few months). I'm originally from the UK.

I started on Etsy with my range of graphic greeting cards and have now begun to add some jewellery (British spelling!) to my shop. Not many sales yet but I have been working hard on promoting my work through my blog, the Etsy forums, Entrecard, Flickr and Twitter. It's really hard to manage all that and hold down a full time job too!

If you have a minute, please have a look at my blog http://bikudesigns.blogspot.com. It would be great to have some comments from people in Japan.

In the near future I will be setting up a feature for Japanese creators on my blog each week. I intend to select items from shops that best illustrate what Japan means to me. If you would like your shop items to be featured, please leave a comment on my latest blog post and I will let you know when your turn is coming up.

Looking forward to hearing from you all:-)

bikudesigns blog
Find me on Twitter
Here I am on Flickr
My Esty shop

Konnichiwa from Euphorianchicstudio

I received a convo recently from Yoshika of euphorianchicstudio.

"My name is Yoshika, I am a Japanese artist who is based in NJ, US. I found Japan Etsy team and I thought I would stop by and say hello. I understand that this team is for etsy seller based in Japan, so I don't really have to be included. But, I also want to promote Japanese culture through etsy community as well. So, I thought it would be nice if I could relate to your team somehow."

Yoshika makes some really great relief paintings as well as beaded charms. Check out her shop!

Hello from AKjapan

Hello, こんにちわ！
I'm Andrea and my ETSY shop is AKjapan. At the moment I live in Saitama with my husband and son, but at the end of this year we will move to Oizumi-machi in Gunma. I am an artist with a background in painting and printmaking. Most of my studio work is landscape and still life painting, and I exhibit regularly in Japan and occasionally elsewhere. I started my ETSY shop one year ago in order to have an outlet for smaller works. I sell small drawings and prints, and I also sell locally made origami paper and fabrics. I live in Yoriimachi which is between the weaving town of Chichibu and the paper-making town of Ogawamachi, so I am able to find nice things for ETSY shoppers in this area. I am pleased to see more and more folks in Japan are starting ETSY shops and having success with their handmade goods and locally sourced supplies.



My blog is where I link everything up and write about what I'm doing in the studio. I have also started a new Flickr group Japan ETSY. If you are a Japan based ETSY shop owner, please join!
mata ne!

Welcome from Togei

Hello, My name is Dave. I have a store at Etsy that you can see if you click here Togei. Welcome to Etsy Focus Japan.

I have lived in Japan for over 14 years, the last 9 in a small village in the mountains of Nara. I am married, have 2 children and a New Foundland dog. I am mainly a potter. A two chamber noborigama keeps me very busy. I found out about Etsy from my sister about 3 weeks ago.

My goals for Japan Etsy Focus.
I would like the team to have several goals.
The first.
Helping sellers in Japan to better understand the ins and outs of selling from Japan. Learning about opportunities in Japan that can help those of us trying to work here.
The second major focus, goal.
I would like to promote is to help the many sellers who want to get a foothold in Japan. What I bring to the table for this second goal is my knowledge of the opportunities here, my language ability and I like to help people out.

Invitation.
If you are interested in the goals put forward by Jacqui or me please leave a comment or email us so we can get back to you and form an effective team.

Etsy Buy Handmade togei

Welcome from Mee a Bee

Welcome to Japan Focus Etsy. I'm Jacqui from Mee a Bee. We've started this group so we can work together to spread the word about Etsy. We love handmade!

About Me:
I'm a long term resident of Japan. I've lived here for about twleve years. I'm a New Zealander. I have two children, am married and live about an hour out of central Osaka.

My children are my inspiration for my work. I have two boys aged six and two. The abundance of cute things for girls drives me to create cool and cute things for boys. I love to sew. I have a serious fabric obsession. I love shopping. These things combined led me to Etsy.

I made my first purchases about a year and a half ago when I discovered Etsy via one of my favourite design blogs. It wasn't until October 2007 that I started to think that perhaps I could run my own store. So far it's going well. I love having my own business.

My Goals for Japan Focus Etsy:
For me it's about networking. Connecting Etsy sellers here in Japan. Brainstorming ideas so we can all be successful. I've learned a lot over the past few months, maybe you have too. Let's share those tips.

Invitation:
We've created this group to help any Etsy seller in Japan who wants to team up and is willing to contribute to better the whole group.

We also welcome global sellers who want to learn more about marketing to the Japanese customer.

Please email us or leave a comment so we can get back to you if you are interested.