It’s December! The month where I go ham with various forms of advent calendars. This year I have a tea swap calendar, a Body Shop calendar and the usual gift calendar with my parents. I’m also doing a sort of video calendar on YouTube called vlogmas (check my YouTube channel out here) and, because I can’t resist, I’m doing AdventBoost, where I recommend cool stuff by marginalized creators. I don’t feel like daily blog posts is realistic this year, so I’m doing 4 posts with 6 boosts each, themed around different kinds of creations. There will be one for books, one for games, one either mixed or theme-to-be-determined and, since there’s still some time left to order Christmas or other holiday gifts, I’m starting with a set of Etsy shop boosts! With this theme, I’m circumventing my usual rule of only featuring marginalized creators, largely because most Etsy shops don’t feature a lot of biographical information and I’d rather not have to Google a bunch tonight, hah. So here’s just six shops whose listings I regularly drool over:
Boost 1 – Wild Fancy Designs
Wild Fancy Designs is a queer artistic duo composed of Lex Non Scripta and Voula O’clock. The Etsy shop is full of wonderful, unique and stylish jewelry and accessories, from pronoun jewelry to pride pins to just plain stylish gear with a queer, feminist twist. They also feature kink-themed stuff and other “cruising” themed pieces. I am particularly smitten with their collar chains. There’s several styles I’d like to get (though I need to start wearing collared shirts more, first!). They’re also committed to sustainability, working mostly in recycled brass for their jewelry!
Boost 2 – Chic Kawaii
This store focuses on retro cuteness, and features pins, stickers and other gear with designs based on old toys. Ever wanted something featuring Polly in my Pocket, Furby, Trolls or classic MLP? Look no further!
Boost 3 – Crafty Jack’s Emporium
I love the simple concept in this shop – paper stars in pride colors. Earrings, necklaces and garlands (and also dragon eggs, which are cool but not pride themed), I like how simple and cute these are. I’m also pleased to see polyamory pride stuff in this shop, which is pretty uncommon (admittedly partly because people can’t quite agree on what it should look like or even if we should have one).
Boost 4 – Wistful Empire
I’ve seen a fair lot of really cute D&D-themed pins and other gear on Etsy, but these stood out to me a bit extra. There’s just something about the juxtaposition of pastels and ttrpg stuff – it says “heck yes nerd shit can be femme” and I appreciate that. Also has some fun non-D&D pins. I’m a particular fan of the “pointless meeting survivor” one.
Boost 5 – The Pin Prick
More enamel pins! This shop features a range of pride pins, including some really unique and minimalistic designs, and some other stuff like lapel pins. It’s also got a selection of retro gaming themed pins and a few based on graphic design tools, which is interesting and niche (I approve!).
Boost 6 – Elrohir Leather
This shop specializes in leather notebook covers for traveler’s notebook style notebooks and oh gosh, they’re just so beautiful. I’ve been eyeing them since the summer and I finally ordered my first notebook the other day. It was a tiny A8 notebook which I’ll be using for daily small to-dos and hopefully some micro poetry. They’re made to order so I won’t get mine for a while but I’m so excited. I’ll also be getting a large A5 notebook from them eventually but even several months into browsing I still haven’t made my mind up (especially since they do custom orders!).
That’s it for today! I think next week’s post will be on games, so keep your eyes peeled for that!