Craft Envy [EBT Carnival]

The Carnival theme for Etsy Bloggers is: What item from another seller's shop do you secretly wish you had thought of first?

Well... it's not that I secretly wish I'd thought of this stuff. It's more like, I wish I had time to dabble in similar crafts. Mostly. So here's a feature of some of my favorite insanely talented people on Etsy whose crafts I wish I could play with. Except the first. The first qualifies absolutely and completely for the actual question here, since I do some similar stuff.

When I saw Karla's shop at Thyme2Dream,
I confess I swooned. I'm a Renaissance and fantasy fangirl and if I was wandering around a Renaissance Faire and found a booth with her stuff in it I'd spend half the day there. It was really tough for me to choose a picture of ONE thing I love in her shop. Then I discovered her brilliant circlet-making husband at PernCirclets. They are definitely on my top 5 list of Etsy heroes. What I envy the most here is that when you see one of her listings, you know instantly who made it. I think I will never have that trademark style.

The rest of these are simply masters of crafts I wish I could do. I waded through most of my 99 pages of favorites (!!!! at least I got to weed out the dead ones) to find them for you.

I am so horrible at sewing that my son insists on sewing on his own buttons. Still, I'm pretty sure it's something I could learn, given time. And a sewing machine. Which I asked for for Christmas several years ago and did not get. So I am still thread-challenged.

If I COULD sew, I would sew costumes. Mostly Renaissance costumes. It would be a long, long time before I could sew anything as gorgeous as the stuff in Spooky Kitten Couture's shop, though. If you've got a touch of Rengeek go look. Another favorite costumier is Damsel In This Dress, partly because the name is just brilliant. :)

I'd never heard of needle tatting until I discovered TotusMel's shop (and blog!) and she's the undisputed queen of tatting in my mind, although I have found a few other shops recently that do more with beads and I LOVE it. This is definitely on my to-learn list, and I definitely want to make Victorian-looking stuff with lots of beads.

There are some leather mask-makers on the 'net. I don't think I'd get very gung-ho into leatherworking, although the stuff IKOW Designs is doing with leather and maille is stunning, so I'd probably play with something like that (I want to try some leather bracers with scalemaile overlay). I wouldn't mind being able to make amazing things like these Knights Templar bracers, at Mojo Leather, either.

One thing I have wanted for a very long time is a good camera(long enough that the camera I once wanted was 35 mm. but is now a digital SLR) , the knowledge to use it well, and opportunities to walk into nature and capture its mysteries. So naturally, Nature's Art is my hero. Their nature photos are breathtaking.

I'm sort of a hippie at heart, so I've always loved macrame (except those ugly plant hanger thingies, which seems to be what most people think of when you say macrame). I still have a gallon ziploc full of hemp, and I can do a basic sinnet (plan to try it in wire one of these days!). Macrame has come a long way since the 70s, though, as evidenced by Glass Dancer's absolutely gorgeous "micro" macrame. Anything tiny and intricate catches my fancy. I'd love to learn to do this one of these days.

There's a lot done with seed beads that's too busy for me, but I love peyote cuffs. I had long admired Sand Fibers' work, and then I featured Time2Cre8's Obama cuff on my blog. She offered a trade, and I am now its proud owner, and made a friend in the process (Mary Lou is a gem!). I'm venturing into this arena a little, with 3 cuffs under my belt so far (they take a LONG time), which I'm sure I will blog about soon. Mary Ann has been helpful getting me off the ground here. She's great! The cuff at left is hers. Go look at the wondrous creations in her shop, or check out her blog or the amazing Etsy BeadWeavers' blog.

My hubby offered me another crafting class this year as my Christmas present, and if I'd done it, I'd have chosen lampworking. But I thought, I know how to do some metalsmithing from last year's class, and don't have the tools to do it - I don't need another class and no tools. So I asked for tools. I still would dearly love to work with glass though, I've thought it was a magical process since I saw glassblowers working at a living museum in Ohio. But I still spend lots of time perusing the lampworking on Etsy, and there are a lot of brilliant people (I'm partial to these lined large-hole beads) but partly because of the luminous, intricate quality of her work and partly because the photography done here is AMAZING, Elysium beads is still my favorite. I'm planning on purchasing one of these mini works of art in the near future to put on a viking chain.

When I first opened my Etsy shop, I intended to do some calligraphy and illuminated manuscripts, as well. I hadn't counted on getting COMPLETELY obsessed with chainmaille and wire, so I haven't spent much time on this, but it's still on my to do list. I can do some calligraphy fairly competently, but what I really want to learn is the gorgeous illumination. Basically, what Bygone Arts is doing. You can get any text you want illuminated for an incredibly reasonable price.

I know, it's a lot of stuff. I doubt that I'll ever be the master of any of these crafts that the people I've featured are. And that's cool.. I want to dabble, use some of these things to complement the crafts I'm already doing. I'm a compulsive learner and creator. I could probably find a lot more crafts I'd like to learn some day but these are at the top of the list :)